“My Fiancée is Threatening to Move Out”

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I met my now fianceé shortly after I had my home built. She moved in a few months later and all was well. A friend of mine who I had roomed with before was being kicked out of his rental home and I asked my fianceé what she thought about him moving in. She said it was fine and felt bad that he was being kicked out on such short notice.

Within three months of him moving in with us, he got laid off. He found another job making significantly less funds, but enough to still pay rent, etc. Fast forward a few months to earlier this year and he and my fiancée both got aggravated with one another over something silly. My fiancée told me I needed to tell him he had to apologize to her, but when I spoke to him his side of the story was different, and I told my fiancée to just let it go. Over the next month, she became aggravated by little things she said he would do, like leaving a utensil or two in the sink and not cleaning them right away. My defense for him is that he keeps to himself for the most part.

Well, I ended up telling him that things weren’t totally working out and I gave him until March of next year to move out (in agreement with fiancée, of course). He said he was already looking elsewhere because he didn’t want to overstay his welcome and that he would more than likely move out in November, but by late December for sure. Unfortunately, within the last two weeks his transmission went out and he asked if it would be OK to stay a little longer so he could save money to replace it. I told him I didn’t think it would be a problem. When I mentioned this to the fiancée last night everything went south, and she said either he moves out by the end of the month or she would.

I told him this morning that him staying after this month was not going to work out, and he said he’s tired of my fiancée always calling the shots and he wants to stay longer. I know she won’t go for it, but what should I do? I don’t want to lose her, but is she controlling me too much? I want to make everyone happy, but at this point that cant happen. — Three’s a Crowd

It’s not your fiancée who’s controlling you; it’s your roommate. At the very least, he’s manipulating you and you’re actually letting his manipulation put your relationship with your fiancée — the woman you plan to marry and spend your life with — in jeopardy. Pull your head out of your ass! This guy has been taking advantage of your — and by extension, your fiancée’s — generosity, patience and good will for well over a year now. He knows damn well he’s “overstayed his welcome” and rather than do whatever he can to find a new place to live, he’s continuing to not only overstay his welcome, but blatantly disrespect your fiancée in the process. What’s wrong with this guy?! What’s wrong with you for letting him get away with it?

You’re about to get married. There are going to be a lot more issues in your future that you and your fiancée will need to compromise on. When you enter into a compromise, it’s important to think about what you’re prepared to sacrifice and what is a non-negotiable for you. Think of this situation with your roommate as practice for all the compromises you’ll be asked to make in coming years. Your fiancée has already sacrificed over a year of privacy so that your friend could have a place to live. She has now made it known that him moving out is a non-negotiable. If it doesn’t happen, she’s moving out. Are you really prepared to sacrifice your relationship because you’re unwilling to stand up to your roommate and tell him to get the hell out already? After a whole year of letting him crash there? Really??

If that’s what you’re saying — that you value the relationship you have with your irresponsible, shit-stirring roommate over that with the woman you plan to spend your life with — then you probably aren’t ready for marriage after all. But if you aren’t willing to put your relationship with her in jeopardy, for God’s sake, tell your roommate he has until the end of the month to find a new place to live because you don’t want to share your home with anyone other than the woman you love.

*If you have a relationship/dating question I can help answer, send me your letters at wendy@dearwendy.com and be sure to follow me on Twitter.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you also may want to check with a lawyer about asking him to leave. Reading the timeline you lay out in your letter and noting the fact that he’s been paying rent, the roommate would be considered a legal tenant in my home state, which means you’d have to go to court and start eviction proceedings. Tell him it’s time to go, and give him a timeline to move out (30-60 days), then stick to it this time. Do not tell him you’re going to consult a lawyer. If he’s not started moving at the end of the timeline, then you’ll have to go to court and start eviction proceedings.

As for the relationship with your fiancee, you two need to get to a counselor pronto to work out issues of compromise and communication. It sounds like she’s very upset that you aren’t listening to her, and that (frankly) you aren’t listening to her. (Note: Listening does not mean doing everything she says. It means really paying attention to her concerns, and weighing them with all due consideration when making a decision that will impact the two of you, no matter how small.) It also sounds like the two of you need to work on conflict resolution because of the way things have played out with your roommate. You’ll want to do this before you marry. These issues will only get worse as time goes on…even after the roommate who wouldn’t leave is long out the picture.

Unless they have a contract or written property agreement he has no legal rights. It is the LWs home, not a real rental property. The “rent” is probably just money he hands to him over coffee once a month table. He was given months notice to leave and they had a verbal agreement on that time table. There really isn’t a case and without the money to even fix his transmission can’t see this guy hiring a lawyer anyway.

Actually, it depends on the tenant rights in your state. In my state, this would most likely fall into a “tenant-at-will” situation, with a de facto verbal lease agreement. Which has specific rights attached to it, including that the at-will tenant must be given a specific amount of notice before they can be denied access to the property.

It really depends on the specific laws of the state where the LW lives.

I was thinking about this notice thing to. At first, he told the roommate that he had until the end of March to get out. But then, it turns into the end of December. Give him until the end of March like you all originally agreed.

Actually in almost all states, it’s his house, and there’s no written lease (even an oral agreement is voided by the statute of frauds), he can kick the guy out whenever he damn well pleases. Admittedly I’m not familiar with the laws of every state, but that’s both common law rules and at least a big majority of states. I remember in 30 Rock the bad boyfriend guy got kicked out of Liz’s apartment and he was like “But I have squatter’s rights!’ I assumed it was a joke at the time. Much like rent control, but that turned out to be a real thing. Anyway depends on where he lives. Don’t want to pay $50 to have a lawyer say you can kick him out at literally any time. I guess tell him to take a hike and if he says no you can call the police and tell them the story and they’ll either come over to shoo him away or tell you that the People’s Republic of New Yorkifornia or wherever doesn’t allow you to kick out squatters.

Hope that’s the case here, because this “friend” is not behaving above board at all. Still, it can’t hurt to check legal options because you never know. Here, if you’ve lived in a place for a set amount of time, get mail there and can prove you’ve been paying rent, you can argue that you’re a tenant with tenant’s rights.

That’s just untrue. Elle Marie’s analysis is spot on. LW, if you want to make him leave, give him the 30-60 days notice that your state statute requires, and do it in writing. Have him sign something acknowledging receipt of the writing, or, if he refuses to sign, have a third party (NOT your fiancee) there to witness it and have that person sign showing that it was served. Then, after whatever time period it is, if he refuses to leave, call the cops.

I’m confused about the timeline here. How long did you guys date before getting engaged? How long did you date before she moved in? How old are all of you? (I’m assuming the LW is mid-late twenties at the youngest, if he could afford to build a home).

I generally don’t think ultimatums are a good idea, but the fiancee has been pretty reasonable up until this point- I mean, she probably moved in with thinking they were building a life + home together, and now buddy’s been invading that privacy for over a year. And really, if you can’t choose between your friend and your fiancee + relationship, you probably have no business getting married at all.

Oh, and if he signed a lease and has been paying rent, good effing luck trying to evict him if he refuses to move out.

Really? A friend in need is someone who is actively working on bettering their situation. Yeah it sucks that he lost his lease, got fired, and now has expensive repairs, but seriously – letting someone live in your house for a year is extreme. The fiancee has compromised – the so called friend has not.

Have to say I kind of agree. He’s paying rent, got another job quickly, even making less money than he was before…shit happens. I feel bad for him.

Now, he’s overstayed his welcome and needs to get the heck out, but still. I do sympathize. There have been (and currently are) periods in my life where it’s one thing after another, and it feels like you’ll never get your feet back underneath you again.

Since she’s his fiancee and was living with him before they even got engaged, I think she has every right to have a say in who lives with him. Or is that right magically conferred only when the ink dries on the marriage license?

You know this guy is getting the friend rate and just chipping in. If he was paying real rent, then he wouldn’t have to continue to stay there to “Save money”. definate mooch. And if he didn’t get the best deal in town, it would be wierd to want to continue to live with a couple.

i agree myself, nor any of my friends lived in a situation where their SO paid all the rent/mortgage/bills, etc and they didn’t pay anything. if that’s the case that’s an entirely different issue/letter in my opinion. although, this LW does seem to be somewhat of a pushover so who knows.

The simple fact that he never mentions this makes me think it is NOT the case. It says specifically that HE built his house. Nowhere does he mention that she also pays part of the mortgage… If she was paying her fair share, she would rightfully have played that card and it would be mentioned in the letter. Hopefully an update will clear all this up. Who knows? Maybe I am wrong here. But somehow I doubt it…

He doesn’t mention the friend pays rent either actually. The LW says the friend’s new job generates enough income TO pay rent etc. Not that he actually is paying any to his friend. But you go ahead and assume whatever you want to. Your argument definitely works better that way.

My friend’s husband won’t let her pay the mortgage. He said he made the decision to buy the condo way before he met her, so he’s not going to make her pay for his committments. However, she pays for all the utilities, which probably come close to costing as much as the monthly payment on a 1br condo.

It is funny to hear a guy’s opinion. Every girl I have known has paid all sorts of bills when living together, then if she is dumped, the guy gets all this equity in his house and she gets nothing because she is not a wife.

Would you live with a couple? of your own free will? if renting by yourself was equal, you would live by yourself instead of with a “chick” that hates him. How would staying be saving money if the rent wasn’t low?

yep. I am assuming that someone who writes into Dear Wendy, an advice columnist, and states “I don’t want to lose her” might have at least a momentary pause about breaking an engagement. you caught me.

And how has this guy been a friend to the LW? Friendship is a two-way street. The “friend”causes strife between the LW and his fiancee without any care to how that would affect the LW; he imposes on them for over a year; aggravates the fiancee and feels no two ways about it. And THEN tells the LW the fiancee is controlling him in order to get his own way – ignoring the hypocrisy of being the one actually trying to manipulate the LW into doing what he wants him to do. How is this even a choice as to who to get rid of?

Oh cut it out with that “bros before hoes” argument. They’re adults, not 19-year-olds living in a frat house. Most coupled up adults eventually stop cohabiting with their friends and live with their spouses or significant others. It’s the progression the LW was committing to before he was kind enough to allow his friend a place to live when he was in need. Now his friend needs to let go and find his own life/way/whatever. And LW needs to decide whether or not he can grow a spine and stand up for the woman he plans on spending the rest of his life with.

“I told him this morning that him staying after this month was not going to work out, and he said he’s tired of my fiancée always calling the shots and he wants to stay longer.”

Since when the friend have right to take shots? that’s your house LW, and he obviously using you. My friends often crash when I’m still single, but after I get married, None of them even ask to. Why? because they are sensible and respecting me and my wife privacy. I know you are still engaged, but to disturb your love nest showing a bad character.

your friend doesn’t have any respect to you, your fiance and your relationship. If he still have a shred of self respect and dignity, he already out in first 3 month.

I think a friend in need is a friend indeed because they NEED something–not because they are an actual friend! C’mon. This guy is clearly taking advantage of the situation, not mention breeching the privacy of a couple who is about to be married. Beyond that, he is also using manipulation with his supposed “friend” by pitting him against his fiancé.

You know that saying “Bros before Hos”?? Well I’m a firm believer in that –UNTIL you get married or engaged. Once you get married or engaged, that other person becomes your number one priority (until you have a child, I guess, then they take that spot).

You’ve been really good to your roommate- You’ve helped him out and you’ve been a good friend, but now it’s time for you to step up and respect your future wife. Your friend should hopefully have some other people in his life (or a credit card) that can help him with the transmission. It’s not your job to take care of him, but it is your job to take care of your fiance.

I don’t think “bros before hos” is something that should apply right up until the day of marriage. If he’s serious about her, then she comes first. Also, whoever referred to her as a “catch of the week” seems to be missing the part where she’s his fiancè. Come on.

LW – There is a line between helping a friend out and being completely taken advantage of. You crossed that many months ago. As someone who has had 3 extended house guests in the last two years there comes a point where it gets to be overwhelming. In one case, my husband’s friend moved from another state and we agreed to put him up while he looked for an apartment and saved a little bit of money. After 3 months I wanted to pull all of my hair out. He was kind and friendly but it got to be really hard to cater to him. I found myself dreading going home because I would feel like I had to entertain him or listen to his problems – which were all self-inflicted. Finally I put my foot down and said he had to move out. He quickly found an apartment and signed a lease, but at 11th hour he realized he did not have enough money. When I found out about this, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to sit in a corner and cry or break something. A similar reaction your fiancee experienced, I bet. We ended up giving him money to get him to move out of the house, because I felt that if we didn’t he would never leave, something would always come up like in your case. This guy needs to move out, especially if he has been living rent free as was the case with us.

If you are worried that your fiancee’s behavior is a warning sign, try to put the situation in perspective. You have said this was your friend, did you fiancee know him really well before he moved in? Does she react extremely to other friends who do not share living space with you? Could her arguments with this guy stem from pent up frustration? Did she start arguing with him immediately or did it build up over time? Think back on the verbal interactions between your friend and fiancee, did he always treat her with respect and offer to help out with cleaning communal spaces or cooking meals? My guess is that the dirty fork blow up is not really about a dirty fork, rather it is about your fiancee feeling like your friend is taking advantage.

i completely agree with you. i think this is more about being frustrated with the living situation. my husband and i had lived together before we were married and had a roommate for 6 months of that. being a guy some of the things that bothered me about living with the roommate didn’t bother him. but, i hated going home some days. i was so happy when we moved out i was right there crying with you (only these were tears of happiness).

thinking about the fiancees reactions to other things is a definitely a good idea. as well as answering some of the other questions you’ve presented.

Agree so hard with this. Beware the guy that calls you crazy, after all. In this case its not the LW but the roommate, but the rule stands. People are rarely truly crazy (and if she was, there would be more evidence than just the relationship between her and your squatter friend), they are more likely reacting to months of feeling put out, marginalized, stressed, and unwelcome.

My boyfriend’s roommate is a slob. My boyfriend doesn’t really care so much, but it drives me up a wall. Luckily I have my own house to go to with a clean kitchen and a fridge not full of old chinese food. I have already told my boyfriend that if we ever move in together it will be on the condition that his roommate moves out. As a person I don’t hate the roommate, but living with him every day, cleaning up his messes every day, never getting to relax without a bra in my own living room because this guy could walk in… this would drive me insane. The way the LW tells it, the fiancee sounds like she has put up with it long enough!

Hahaha, this is how I feel about my roommates from undergrad! Honestly, living with people (even people you like) is hard. I have one roommate now and we are well-suited to living together and were friends before, but sometimes it can be really aggravating! I can’t imagine thinking that I was going to be creating a little “love nest” with my fiance and then discovering that his buddy was going to be living there for the next year + . That would mean having to moderate your sex life (maybe it’s just me but the thought of someone else being able to hear me have sex just freaks me right out), not being able to lounge around in my bathrobe and a million other things.

I wish I could thumbs this up more! I think your questions are ones that the LW really needs to consider. By the way, I always like looking at your avatar whenever you comment! Is it a necklace that you made?

“If… you value the relationship you have with your irresponsible, shit-stirring roommate over that with the woman you plan to spend your life with — then you probably aren’t ready for marriage after all.”

“Fast forward a few months to earlier this year and he and my fiancée both got aggravated with one another over something silly. My fiancée told me I needed to tell him he had to apologize to her, but when I spoke to him his side of the story was different, and I told my fiancée to just let it go.”

So…. you took your moocher buddy’s side over your future wife’s ??? MAN. Maybe you should just cut her loose – but still buy the gifts.

THIS! Even if the 2 sides of the story don’t match up, if all it would take for the fiancee to “just let it go” is an apology than you should have gotten her one. If the friend couldn’t say “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding the other day and I will ____ to make sure it doesn’t happen again” than he should have moved out right then. You and your fiancee are making sacrifices for him and he couldn’t muster up a simple apology if only to make your life easier??? he is walking all over the both of you and you are just letting it happen!

My cousin and her husband are super laid-back people who have been married for 7 years and have happily lived with other couples in communal living situations for the entire duration of their marriage.

I also consider myself a (mostly) laid-back and compassionate person, but I NEED MY SPACE. I can’t imagine having a house guest for, what sounds like, 8 months or more. Especially when I’m adjusting to living with a partner.

There are lots of different kinds of people in the world, and they all have different needs. Based on your letter, I wouldn’t say your fiancee is being unreasonable, because perfectly reasonable people would be irritated with a houseguest after many months, even if it were their best friend in the world.

You and your fiance discussed and agreed upon a timeline to get this friend out of your house. That was March of 2012. You told this to your friend and he said he was going to try to move out sooner. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and he asked to stay longer. I honestly think you should stick to your original timeline and tell him he must be out of the house by 2012.

I’m sure the fiance was excited about the prospect of this dude leaving sooner and is mad he’s not. But at one time, she did say March 2012 and is now back peddling. It sucks for her. It sucks for you. And I’m sure it sucks for him. But such if life. You all need to grow up and have a calm, rational discussion with a plan in place.

I think she is mostly reacting out of stress. No matter who is wrong, the friend and the fiancee obviously cannot live together and both are growing to resent and dislike each other. The fiancee finally saw a light at the end of the tunnel when he said he would be out ASAP but has now back tracked. I imagine that the fiancee feels that this will continue to happen because he hasn’t gotten the gumption to move out yet. First it was the housing problem, then the job, now his transmission…who knows what is next. He travels over the holidays so he doesn’t have money, he needs more money for an apartment lease, the place he wanted to move to is full, etc. I am not necessarily saying this is the case, but if I were in the fiancee’s place, I think this is how I would feel.

I agree that the LW should sit down and talk to his fiancee and ask her if it would be ok if the friend stayed for a short while longer…set a hard and fast date and then stick to it. If he talks to her like she is a decision maker and actually gives weight to her opinions then I imagine she will agree to extend his friends tenure a little longer.

Think about it if you were the girlfriend. You agree to March 2012 and you give him 6 months notice. So lets say they told him at the end of September. He said he would be gone by the end of December. Yes! He is leaving sooner! You can’t wait!

Then he says he can’t leave at the end of December. You are so sick of living with him you don’t think you can take him anymore. You’d rather move out than live with him.

I’d want my fiance to tell the friend to go or I’d move out too. I wouldn’t agree to March 2012 again.

I totally sympathize with the unwanted roommate here. It is ALWAYS something, isn’t it?

That being said, dude, LW, you have GOT to get him out of there. It sounds like he and your fiancee finally just reached point where they can’t live together peacefully anymore. It sucks, but I can’t say I blame her for feeling that way.

To be fair, though, I think her telling you that YOU had to tell HIM to apologize to HER is totally out of line and pretty childish. I appreciate that you’re trying to be neutral and keep the peace here, but I think this is one time where you really have to just choose a side and stick to it.

I agree with Wendy that your fiance seems to be pretty reasonable about this. It is really important that your house feel like her home, too, if you plan to build a future together. That means letting her have say about who lives there and what goes on under your roof. I cannot stress enough how important it is that you help her feel at home in your house. When it comes to big stuff like this, she comes before your friends, period. If you can’t give her that primacy, then she deserves someone who can.

Can you help your buddy out some other way (with your fiance’s approval, of course)? Can you store his stuff for a while, give him a break on rent this month, help him find a new place, or something else to get him on his way without just tossing him to the curb? It sounds like he has had some tough breaks and it’s admirable that you want to help him out. But your helping can’t get in the way of your relationship or soon you won’t have a relationship of which to speak.

This LW is clearly not ready for marriage. If all his friend had to do was say that “your gf is controlling” to make him come to this site to ask if she is controlling him he clearly doesn’t know his fiancee well. After reading this letter the top 3 traits I would come up with for his SO is kind, generous and patient. For a YEAR she let this guy stay in what was supposed to be their blissful love nest. It seems she has been compromising for quite awhile now and both you and your friend are taking advantage. If I was her and read this letter I would break the engagement. If you have to ask if she is being too controlling and can have your opinion on the love of your life swayed so easily by some grifter – clearly you don’t know this woman well enough to think about forever. When you are ready to put her opinion above those of your friends then you should reconsider the long term. This is just sad.

Or maybe she really IS controlling and he’s just now beginning to see it. Hey, I’ve found that most people only give an idea credence and validity in their mind if it is, for the most part, true. If she truly wasn’t controlling, somehow I suspect the LW would have merely laughed his friend’s suggestion off. The fact that he didn’t is, frankly, very telling.

The only thing it tells me is that he can’t sand up for himself period. Doesn’t mean either the fiance or the squatter has a better point. Just that he has never had enough confidence in his damn self. In that case he sure isn’t ready for marriage, and he STILL needs to get rid of the roommate. He needs to be alone until he figures his shit out.

On further contemplation if she really was a controlling person the squatter would be out already. A controlling person would not let that shit go down for as long as the fiance has. So. No. I take it back. Ditch the roommate. He’s the mooch.

They’re both controlling you. She should have talked to you more calmly (minus the threats of leaving) about wishing he could move out. And your roommate needs to grow up and realize he can’t live with his friend who is getting ready to get married for the rest of his life.

I think you need to have a talk with your fiancee about communicating better and you need to pick a timeline for your friend and stick to it. Did you tell your fiancee to her face that you thought her issues with him were silly? I might have gotten upset at you if I was in her shoes. Sure the issue might seem silly to you, but living with your fiancee and his friend for a year can’t be ideal. And if he’s been living with you this long (without trying to move out on his own or in with other roommates) I’m going to guess that there will be many ‘transmission’ type issues that constantly come up that prolong his stay. Perhaps thoughts like that prompted your fiancee to get even more upset and threaten to leave?

Yes! I think this entire situation could have been avoided if the friend would have apologized. But I can see why he wouldn’t if he knew the fiance demanded it. That reeks (sp?) of controlling behavior. A molehill is now a mountain and the LW is stuck in the middle. Communication is key people.

I don’t think it was a threat and I don’t think we can determine whether or not she was being calm when she said this either. There is nothing uncalm or irrational about offering him a choice. They had a discussion and agreed on a time for the friend to leave. This is communication. When he broke this agreement he made a choice in favor of the friend – she gets to make one too. She has the right to say that she will not live with this friend indefinitely anymore. This is a fact and not an ultimatum or a threat. She has been patient with the situation for a year now. There is nothing wrong with wanting to know who comes first in your relationship you- or his friends. In fact I think she is being brave by risking her engagement in order to do what is best for her.

i guess that was poor word choice. i think it is out of line/irrational to demand your fiance to get his friend to apologize to you. the rest of what you said i agree with completely. and i more than agree that she shouldn’t have to live with the friend indefinitely and that they need to set some time lines. but, in general it seems like they don’t have the best communication (at least from the letter).

I can’t say I have ever demanded an apology before and it may be irrational (because an apology given under duress means nothing) but if that is all she needed to move on then why not? She has already made a lot of sacrifices and simply asked for an “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding the other day and I will ____ to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” It may seem petty but aren’t we all petty at times. The refusal to ask the friend to apologize just makes one more time that the LW chose his side over hers. Even the LW admits that it all went downhill after that. Instead of recognizing that he is the problem he is looking to blame his fiancee. It is even more irrational for him to think that she will continue to be okay with him prioritizing others feelings and needs over hers.

You’re right. They did have a discussion and the LW and the fiance agreed that the friend had to leave. But you’re wrong on the timeline. The LW and fiance originally agreed to a March 2012 deadline. The friend said he was going to try to leave sooner. He is now asking to stay a little longer. The agreed time was March 2012. Not November/December 2011. It is the fiance who is breaking the agreement. Not the LW and not the friend.

I also agree that this guy can’t stay indefinitely. And it would be best if he would just leave. But there is a major breakdown of communication and it’s not getting anyone anywhere.

I understand the timeline completely and that they agreed that he had to leave in march but it was the LW who told the friend March 2012 and came back to the fiance with November/December at the latest. Once the friend told the LW that he did not plan on staying until March, the time he chose (end of 2011) becomes the agreement. It is not unreasonable for the LW to assume that the fiancee would be okay with extending the deadline back to March, but after months of thinking “by New Year’s we’ll have this place to ourselves” it is not unreasonable for the fiancee to be upset by ANOTHER change of plans either. I honestly don’t believe communication is the problem here – they have talked about this guy leaving for over a year and now she wants to see some action. She has reached her breaking point and has decided that either way one of them has to go and I can’t really blame her.

After they get married, it will be *their* house. IF they get married. If the roommate ever moves out. She’s probably wondering when or if they’ll ever be alone in the same house together or when she’ll be able to experience what it’s like to live alone with her fiance and maybe even have the freedom to set a date for the wedding (or are they all three supposed to live happily ever after?). Patient girl, holding off on her life for this clown roommate, adjusting her plans according to *his* needs. It’s probably not what she signed up for, but she seems like a good, supportive fiance, compromising and setting aside her own desires for over a year. And now finally she’s directly asking her fiance (who’s in a relationship with HER, not the roommate) for one of her needs to be met. I don’t see where you get “controlling” or “passive aggressive” from her actions.

I totally get the “controlling” and “passive aggressive” thing, specifically when I read this line,

“My fiancée told me I needed to tell him he had to apologize to her.”

Good freakin’ grief, that’s the dictionary definition of “controlling” and “passive aggressive”! Tell him yourself, woman! Deal with your own problems rather than nagging a man to fix them for you! I mean what is this, the 1950s?

Unfortunately this couple inhabit a grey area of relationship. She doesn’t get the full rights of a wife to say what goes on in her home, and yet she has more power than a mere girlfriend to make demands. The LW brought this on himself when he let her move in, and how he has to suffer with it. This needs to be resolved.

I think that no one in this situation is handling it well, including the LW. I don’t like the fact that fiancee expects the LW to handle the issue she has with the friend. If she is an adult, she should take it up with the friend directly. Also, adults don’t give ultimatums, they figure out the best strategy and work their way from there.

As for the friend, he needs to get his act together. He must know that he is causing a rift between the LW and his fiancee and is doing little to rectify it. Does he not have any other friends he can stay with? He is taking advantage of the LW in many ways.

I know the LW is between a rock and a hard place but he should not be the operator in a game of telephone between the friend and the fiancee. It makes me question the maturity of the entire bunch.

The fiance is clearly incapable of dealing with her own problems. What grown-ass woman goes to her fiance to tell him to tell his friend (whom she lives with) to apologize to her. If you want an apology, get it yourself. Hash it out, don’t just be passive agressive and let it fester for months on end. At the very least invest in some premarital counseling. She needs to learn how to fight properly.

The friend is too stubborn and stupid to realize that this is one of those situations where its better to apologize and smooth things out than be *right*. (I’m not claiming that he is right, just that he perceives himself as right.) He doesn’t have to apologize for what he said or did or admit wrong-doing, just apologize for hurting her feelings. Remember, there’s always three versions to any story – what he said, what she said and the truth. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle.

They’re both a couple of ass-hats and shouldn’t be forcing the LW to mediate their problems. Next time your fiance comes to you and tells you to tell someone else to do something, tell you’ll back her up, but she needs to tell them herself. This is not fifth grade.

Your friend has lived with you for over a year – why would he need need to stay a “little longer” to save up money? What does a little longer mean? Wasn’t your initial arrangement for only a little while? Why doesn’t he have the money saved already if he has had a job for almost the whole time he has been living there? It seems like something will always come up and you will never be rid of him if you are waiting for him to leave on his own. I’m not sure why you are willing to risk your happiness for this man. Telling you you are letting your fiancee make decisions for you when things don’t go his way shows his true colours, no? Especially given how long you both have been patient with him. Your happiness doesn’t mean anything to him – he is willing to risk you losing the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with – all so he can avoid responsibility, manning up and taking care of himself. That doesn’t sound like much of a friend to me.

He’s been paying rent the whole time. When you get your own place you often need a deposit and all that stuff. It’s actually not out of left field to need more time. Also, he was out of work for while. Despite all that, the guy NEVER skipped paying rent. A fact few of you give him any credit for…

He agreed to be out by March 2012. And now they’ve (or rather she’s) moved the timeline up. That’s something they did. Not him. He’s not asking for more time, really. They are just taking it away.

It’s always stand by the girl here. Even if she comes off as whiny and controlling. Whatever. Somehow I imagine that if the sexes were simply reversed here so that a man was demanding that his fiance’s best girlfriend move out of the house that she/not he pays for, you’d all (rightly) jump on him for being a textbook controller who seeks to isolate his victim… Seriously. Give that some thought though.

” I mean, in a way, it’s almost hilarious as I am usually bending over backwards on here defending the guys girl write in here about — but in this case there is simply nothing to defend. ”

I’m not trying to start anything. Just pointing out to you that the very thing you accuse everyone else of doing is something you also do. We all view things through the lens of our own gender. All of our thoughts, feelings, and of course, comments, are affected by our own experiences. We all do a certain amount of placing ourselves in the shoes of whichever person we are most similar to. Many times that is related to gender. Sometimes it’s related to issues of race or poverty or obesity or mental illness. Because this is largely an advice column related to relationships, gender is often a main issue here.

Frankly, I tend to stick up for the men on here because nobody else does. That said, when somebody is an idiot, I call them out on it. Male or female. And I really think the friend here is getting a bum rap. That is largely, unwarranted. I also don’t think I am nearly so blind about what I am doing either. There is a method to my madness. But with this letter so many are siding with the chick who, sadly, comes across as a bit of a harpie, that I thought it was especially alarming…

I agree with you that the friend here shouldn’t be criticized so much. But whether the friend is great or not, the problem still exists in the home, and the advice is about what the LW should do, right? He’ll have to choose to either side with the fiancee or the friend. Most of us are looking at it as weighing which relationship is heavier, I believe (at least that’s what I’m doing). To give an example of when the majority did not side with the female is the bi-sexual letter that was recently updated. (Well, I actually didn’t ever read that letter, but from the update, I’m gathering most people tended to support her MALE fiance).

It sounds like you’re intending to contradict what everyone else is saying for the purpose of showing different perspectives. And in the process, you’re trying to illuminate the biases that we may have in responding? I’m trying to understand you because your comments are often quite extreme and angry.

With this letter, my underlying point of view is that I find it sad and disturbing how many people simply chuck aside their REAL friends, friends who have been there for them for years, just because they get married to somebody who is difficult to be around.

(Amazingly, this has NEVER happened to me. No, seriously. It hasn’t.)

But I have witnessed it many times. And I have to say, blind allegiance to your significant other is a truly fucking stupid concept. You know what? If I am acting like a bitch, I’d like to be told so. I don’t make other’s fight my battles for me either. Demanding your husband MAKE his friend apologize to you? How pathetic! I think that is really beyond pathetic.

But clearly I am nearly along in thinking this on here. Oh, that poor fiance. Whoa is her! She should ALWAYS be able to expect her man to chose her over his lifelong friend even if she’s being a deranged bitch about it. Really? Wow, that’s an incredibly lame view of love some of you have. But clearly many of you simply expect your man to ALWAYS stand by you and your side no matter how at fault you may be. Um, okay, I think that’s pretty fucked up. Moreover, I think that is a recipe for disaster because eventually, your man is going to tire of it and divorce.

Real love means being able to call one another on your bullshit.

If you can’t handle that, then you are far too immature to be married. Then again, clearly, most ARE too immature to be married as the divorce rate is absurd. Interesting, guess all that blind allegiance to one another isn’t all it was cracked up to be…

First, you of course realize that this is not the one and only factor behind divorces, so I’ll just leave that alone.

I personally do not feel that there should always be blind allegiance to a significant other. But when there comes a situation in which the significant other is not being crazy, a person may end up in a situation where he does have to make a choice between two people. If the fiancee was being unreasonable, it would become more of an issue of allegiance to the SO vs. the right thing for the LW. Because I believe the fiancee is making reasonable demands, I am framing the situation more as allegiance to the SO vs. allegiance to the friend. In either situation, the LW has to realize that a potential consequence of not choosing the side of his fiancee is that his relationship might have some issues or even completely end.

About choosing between a friend and a significant other… this is a personal choice for everyone. The most popular opinion seems to be that a lifetime commitment to a significant other prioritizes that person over anyone else. In fact, I think that’s in many wedding vows, but I could be wrong. Before that commitment is made, the friend often takes priority (though this varies by the seriousness of the relationship). Since this woman is his fiancee, and he is committing to her, the issue of when that allegiance begins arises. If their engagement is the beginning of their lifetime commitment, which is a popular opinion on DW, then she would become the priority. You clearly have priorities that differ from these though. But I think most of us hope that our life partners/husbands/wives/whatever will stand by our side if we’re reasonable. And if we’re not being reasonable, that they will try to see our side first, and then gently work with us to compromise or explain what’s wrong with our reasoning.

But this is not one of those times. Even if the girl is overreacting, the roommate is not exactly blameless here. If I saw that my presence is causing any kind of tension between my friend and his or her SO I would do everything to fix the situation (and I am not talking about extreme cases of actual abusive/controlling behavior). And generally if I no longer feel welcome, I leave.

1. They aren’t married yet. 2. Yes, family should be prioritized over friends when it is DESERVED. 3. He IS trying to leave. The roomate was the one to up his date of leaving. Something came up and now he has to fall back on an ALL AROUND agreed later date.

The ultimatum is what gives me pause on this letter. She agreed to March. Maybe the roomate got her hopes up by saying he could move out sooner, but shit happens.

Let me try to approach the issue in this way: though I do not accept your assumption the girl is acting wrongly, let’s assume she is. I think we can also assume that in some way the friend is in the wrong as well. Regardless of what timeline should be honored and which is fair, the roommate has been benefiting from his relationship with his friend for FAR too long, rent or no rent. To prioritize the importance of his friend, the roommate should have been hustling to get out as soon as possible. I’m telling you as someone who has been in this situation in the middle of dire straits and you CAN find a way to change your situation even if it means tapping into other resources both monetary and friend-wise. So assuming both the people in the LW’s situation are wrong and it’s a dead heat of wrongdoing, you STILL choose…the fiancé.

Friends and family are so important to who we are and where we’ve been, but when we make a commitment of the magnitude of marriage, those relationships take a secondary position. The LW is NOT prioritizing what should be his primary relationship. If I had a girlfriend staying with me and my partner, you can bet I’d be on her to get on her feet sooner rather than later out of consideration for my man. Because he is my priority. He would never have to ask me to get her out because I would not let the intrusion get to that point. Friendship is being there to catch our friends and to help them as much as we possibly can when they need it, but when that friendship is being taken for granted for too long, a person can find themselves going above and beyond the call. If it were his mother staying for that long, it would still be an overlong stay and an imposition.

On another note, it is not the friend’s place to tell the LW how his relationship should be. Even if he were doing it in a respectful way (and it certainly didn’t sound that way) it would not be his place to bring the relationship into the mix at that time. Sounds like the desperate move of a guilty moocher to me. A “real friend”? A “real friend” insinuates himself in your life, home and relationship for months on end? I think not. There’s always a way to make yourself less obtrusive, ESPECIALLY when you have a job. The LW is an adult and it is NOT the friend’s place to interfere in a relationship he doesn’t know everything about. If the fiancée were behaving badly, he’d certainly be in the right to defend himself to her directly or even ask the friend to mediate disagreements with all three of them present, but it is inappropriate to use what may or may not be lacking in the relationship to sidestep the issue of the friend’s extended stay. Dostoevsky wrote, “You can never be sure of what has passed between husband and wife or lover and mistress. There’s always a little corner which remains a secret to the world and is only known to those two.” The friend is NOT in a position to use his friend’s relationship as ammunition to defend himself in such a way.

However, yes a person should certainly back up their partner even when having to choose them over a lifelong friend. Not blindly, but as a general rule. As I wrote above, if it’s a draw between the two people in your life, you fall on the side of the one you made the most serious commitment to. You can always “call them on their bullshit” in private if it bothers you, but yes the most important part of relationships is being able to trust your partner to stick by you. I’m especially skeptical of an advice giver who thinks, “Real love means being able to call one another on your bullshit.” That’s not love, that’s how you conduct yourself when you’re dating at 16. Adults don’t “call each other out” they discuss, negotiate, communicate, etc. Like you wrote about the fiancée, this snippet is quite telling regarding your experience with male friends in relationships. Nothing about a functional adult romantic relationship or friendship is “blind,” it just looks that way to those outside of it.

I cannot roll my eyes hard enough at this. You don’t seriously think everyone here blindly sides with girls in every situation no matter what do you? I feel like I read a variation of this comment from you on every other column, bgm. There are PLENTY of situations written about on this site in which the majority of female commenters call the girl out or empathize with the guy.

I would think you wouldn’t waste so much of your time reading and commenting on a site that was so anti-male, as you’d have us believe.

Nothing says he is paying rent. Just that he is making enough money to pay it since he got the lower paying job. As in – he can move out since he is making sufficient funds to do so. But let’s assume you are right – nothing says he “NEVER” skipped paying – I’m going to make an educated guess and say he didn’t pay the three months he wasn’t working since saving doesn’t seem to be his forte if he still doesn’t have any savings to fix his car. And the fiancée didn’t move up the time table for him to be out – the friend did. And the friend isn’t saying he needs until March – he is saying he needs ‘more time.’ Which is how he came to live there for over a year- needing more time since his last place didn’t give him enough. Exactly how much is enough? An ENTIRE YEAR is insufficient to see about your business and save up first and last’s months’ rent for an apartment or a room in a boarding house? People give their grown CHILDREN marching orders quicker than this friend has taken to get back up on his feet. Where exactly is the point where this friend is taking advantage of the LW’s good nature? If the friend is tired of the fiancee calling the shots then he should put on his big boy pants and start taking responsibility for his own life.

And enough already with the girl power over shadowing sense on this site. Plenty of us call it as we see it. Look at the letter from the writer who assaulted her boyfriend if you need your proof. Quite frankly, since you freely admit to having taken up the shield of all male-kind – your bias in saying “it is all about standing by the girl” is not just hypocritical – it’s getting tiresome.

“Within three months of him moving in with us, he got laid off. He found another job making significantly less funds, but enough to still pay rent, etc.”

This from the orig letter says EXACTLY that he is paying rent. And where do you get that he wasn’t working for three months? Seriously. Do people even read the letters? He was living with the LW for three months when he got laid off, found another lower-paying job and continues to pay rent. Your ENTIRE argument is moot if you can’t comprehend a couple of simple sentences. So, I guess your entire argument is moot.

And, please. This site is overwrought with “girl power” attitude. I’m surprised there isn’t a Spice Girls tribute group around here. When that girl wrote in about her friend having an STD and not telling her boyfriend, about 95% of you said “Yeah, the girlfriend should tell him, but if she doesn’t, mind your own business.” If THAT had been gender reversed people would have Lost Their. Shit. on here.

Good for you. But your guess is just that, a guess as well. I read the letter too, and I also did not jump to the conclusion that the roommate has been such a model citizen, dealing with a deranged and controlling bitch that you seem to think the fiancée is. If it really is such an unbearable living situation for him, then nothing is stopping him from manning up and moving out.

No where did I say or even imply that I thought he was model citizen, just not the loser, scumbag mooch that he has been (unfairly) portrayed on here. Deranged and controlling bitch MIGHT be over-speculating my comments a bit. Altho, I see some controlling tendencies in the letter, which is what I have commented on earlier. And MONEY! Money is keeping him from moving out. The roommate had plans to move out and his transmission busted. Have you ever had to pull money out of your ass for something like that? My engine siezed up on me a couple years ago and if it were not for the awesomeness of my friends, I probably would have lost my job. I had to take out a loan for 4K to get it fixed and borrow a car from a friend for over 2 weeks. Shit happens.

And you know what, since we are nit-picking on the details here, he moved with them not because he had no money, but because he was being thrown out of his rental home. According to the letter he was jobless for a very short while. He was never unable to pay rent. He had plenty of time to make other living arrangement. But he chose to stay and intrude on a soon-to-be married couple. If he pays rent to the LW, there is no reason why he can’t pay that rent to someone else. And that makes it even worse. And yes, life happens, and friends should be able to help each other out. But part of being a friend is knowing your limits, and not trying to actively sabotage your friend’s relationship for your personal gain.

So now nit-picking is pointing out huge factors in this situation? Ummkay.

We can argue about this all day long. Or I could anyway. The roommate wasn’t intruding until the fiancee said he was. It seems from the letter that they were an engaged couple who had a roommate. Not the first time in the history of co-habitation that this has happened. The fiancee and the roommate had an arguement over something “silly.” LW is the ONLY one out of anyone to hear both sides of the story and has deemed it as such. Yet, the fiancee still told LW to MAKE the roommate apologize. And now she is acting like a big baby when she didn’t get her way. Yeah, the roommate *might* have been out of line on the controlling comment, but since he actually lives there, he would know more than us.

The fact that the friend doesn’t really need help and still hangs around is a huge one too. And yes, after at least 5-6 months of living with a dude, who in no way was a part of the deal, her patience wore thin and she decided that it was time to make her relationship with the LW a priority. Wether the argument was over something important to the LW or not doesn’t matter. It was important enough to her. That does not make her a baby. That makes her a woman who has her priorities straight, unlike the LW. And yes, this could be endless, so you are right, she is the evil one, the roommate is the hero who rescues the LW from hell of a relationship, and the LW is a mature man who sways which ever way the wind blows…

Where does it say the friend doesn’t need help? He had a place to live which fell thru when he had to replace his tranny. That, to me, seems like he has money issues.

Not part of the deal? It’s not like LW brought his friend home one day and said, “Oh, yeah, this guy is going to live with us now.” Again, DO PEOPLE NOT READ LETTERS?? She agreed. AGREED! She said it was fine. Then, she said it wasn’t OK anymore and they ALL agreed on a date for the roommate to move out. If she was going to have a problem with having this friend there for a long period of time, she should have spoken up when he moved in. I agree that it doesn’t matter what the argument was about. She feels how she feels and no one gets to tell her otherwise BUT that doesn’t give anyone carte blanche to be a bitch. I am a woman with my priorities straight, but I don’t tell my boyfriend to make people apologize to me. Or pick fights over a freakin spoon in the sink. Grow the fuck up and deal with your issues yourself. She has issues but people on here will defend a woman like this until they are blue in the face, apparently.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think is a reasonable amount of time to have a friend live with you and your SO, considering that the initial intent was for you two to live together and only help out your friend for a while?

LW NEVER said his friend moving in was temporary. I think the sudden need for a place to live is what is misguiding everyone here to ASSUME it was just a quick fix living situation. Couples have roommates. Newly engaged couples can have someone live with them long term. I swear – it happens!! It’s just another example of people here trying to make their point and NOT READING THE FREAKING LETTER! LW said he asked his fiancee if it was OK if his friend “moved in.” Nowhere does he say it was temporary.

“And yes, apparently she was wrong when she assumed that “for a while” actually meant for a while, and not for an entire year.”

Wha…? SHE doesn’t say anything here. Again, LW just says the friend moved in. Not that he was only going to be there for a month, not that he was planning on living there forever, just that he moved in. Where is the part where you got she assumed it was only for a while????

It’s like people on here create some storyline in their minds and argue off that instead of what is in black and white (or blue) in the actual letter. I’m dumbfounded! Honestly.

LOL – No, I saw it. And the funny thing I almost never comment in here. I’ve been following Wendy since she had her personal blog, but rarely post anything. But today (well, last night when I read this letter) got my goat, I have to admit.

“Within three months of him moving in with us, he got laid off. He found another job making significantly less funds, but enough to still pay rent, etc.” This from the orig letter says EXACTLY that he is paying rent.

NO – that says he is making enough TO PAY rent. Nothing says he IS paying. And for that matter, BGM is right – the letter does not specify that he missed paying rent…but it also does not say he DID NOT miss paying rent. I’m totally rolling my eyes – since we are apparently playing the assuming game, it is a 2 way street.

And actually, the attacks, insults, negativity and condescension that have been just DRIPPING off of a good portion of the comments lately is totally off-putting and is not why I started reading this site. The constant attitudes and lack of respect are getting really old.

Let’s pretend you are writng a letter and you make a point to say that the person you may be having a problem with makes enough to pay rent. If said person wasn’t paying you rent, wouldn’t you make it a point to say that “he makes enough to pay rent, altho he is living here rent free.” Or “He makes enough to pay rent, but I haven’t been making him pay any.” I mean, LW found the information pertinent enough to touch on in the letter, wouldn’t he included if he wasn’t paying rent as well? Read between the lines.

My comments don’t have disdain dripping off of every single one of them for how naiive or stupid or misguided everyone else is.

The letter is about the roommate moving out. In that context, all this letter says is that the roommate “makes enough to pay rent” that does not say that he is paying rent. That says he can afford to pay rent. So, in the context of if it is reasonable to make a friend/roommate move out, it really does not matter if he is paying me rent or not. What matters is if he can AFFORD to pay rent – as in pay it somewhere else.

Jesus, sorry we don’t just leap to the conclusion that every woman in every story MUST be a huge nasty bitch because *insert some speculation that’s really reaching, usually “the OP doesn’t EXPLICITLY say that that random thing happened, so it never happened LALALALALA*

I think the bottom line here is that you’re not ready for marriage. You seem to be swaying whichever way the wind blows. Your fiance says this guy needs to go? OK, he’s going! Your friend says your fiance is controlling? You freak out and ask “OMG, is she controlling?!” You’re going to go through worse than this in a lifetime with someone. You need your own backbone, your own thoughts, your own opinions. You can’t allow people to take advantage of you. Which is exactly what you’re doing here.

For the record, the fiance has been more than patient, in my opinion. And I don’t think it’s controlling to want someone out of your shared home after more than a YEAR of crashing. I’d have been gone LONG before. I also don’t think it’s controlling for her to give an ultimatum. And you know what else? This ultimatum isn’t just about the living situation. I bet your fiance is seriously questioning right now if you have what it takes to make it through marriage – since you’ve so easily let someone walk all over you. Are you going to put her first? Are you going to be able to recognize her needs and her desires in the relationship? I imagine all of that is running through her mind, and if I were her, I’d be having some serious doubts.

You want to make sure you don’t lose your fiance? You want to prove that her doubts are unfounded, and that this relationship will work? Then find that backbone and tell this dude that the charity is over. She comes first now. And if she doesn’t, then please don’t marry her.

Exactly if I was the fiancee here i would be sobbing in my wedding dress. Clearly this guy doesn’t love her as much as he thinks he does. This realization probably hurts the fiancee every time she sees the asshole friend eating her cheerios. I am sure he thinks he puts her first but his actions say the exact opposite. After compromising for a year and finding out that the friend is once again staying indefinitely I would have gone off the deep end.

I think you guys are being harsh. He has two people he cares about and wants to make everyone happy. That makes him a people pleaser, not un-marry-able. (yea, that isn’t a word). Honestly, reasonable people are taken for granted because they don’t freak out. So his fiancee is being a doormat. Look, my husband and I had major issues with a friend of his (very similar to this but not living with us). They had been friends for 10 years and he had been with me two. He is still trying to balance the relationship with me and the one with his friend.

I agree with ReginaRey here. He needs to figure out what HE really thinks of the situation, not just absorb the feelings of his fiancè & roommate & then try to make sense of it (which he’s failing to do anyway). He doesn’t have to choose one over the other, but he has to take a stance. In my opinion, a friend shouldn’t be staying at a couple’s almost-marital home for that amount of time. If it were the fiancè’s out-of-luck girl friend, I’d say the same thing. But other people have different boundries.

My problem is that the questions he’s posing seem a little, um, dense. It doesn’t seem like he even understands why his fiancè would have a problem with this situation. I think RR put it nicely: “I bet your fiance is seriously questioning right now if you have what it takes to make it through marriage – since you’ve so easily let someone walk all over you. Are you going to put her first? Are you going to be able to recognize her needs and her desires in the relationship?” If it showed in his letter that he actually examined these possible feelings, then I would say he & his fiancè just have different ideas of what’s appropriate. But he doesn’t seem to realize ANYTHING. She and your friend get into a tiff, and he goes back and forth between them, taking each at their word. “You need to aplogize because you did this. Wait, you didn’t? Okay hun, he doesn’t need to apoligize.”

And to the LW, I agree your friend is taking advantage of the situation. He sees you leaning one way now, so he appeals to your bro side by complaining about how your fiancè is always calling the shots. She’s your fiancè and she lives in your home. OF COURSE SHE IS. Your friend should understand that HE is the intruder and that both you & your fiancè have done him a huge favor instead of trying to pit you against the woman you supposedly love.

Totally agree with Wendy here! I think your fiance has been very understanding about your friend living with you guys. Your friend has had some tough luck, but that’s how it goes and you’ve helped him out for the past year. And you want to know why your fiance starting complaining about little things with your friend? Because when they had a fight, you took his side, therefor your friend caused a wedge between you and your fiance. Thus your fiance probably doesn’t like your friend very much anymore and little things annoy her. It’s never about what it’s about. So she complains about the spoon in the sink rather than the fact that you chose his side of the story over hers. You just need to man up and tell your friend to leave.

Second the “It’s not about what you think it’s about” statement. Yes, the reason the small things annoy her is because the roommate grates on her. He grates on her because he’s coming between you and her, and because he’s negatively impacting your relationship. That dirty spoon represents everything that annoys her.

Your fiance got in an argument with him and has wanted him out since then. If you verified that your friends side was true then I think your fiance is out of line. It’s your house…she is a guest there too…you aren’t married yet….I would have no issue helping a friend out like you were (pending the size of my house) and I think I would have resentment for my hypothetical fiance if she was giving me crap about it. Her inability to move on from this when she was wrong (if she was wrong) is also a personality flaw I don’t think I’d have patience for.

If the guys story line checks out then he has had poorly timed misfortunes and if I were you I would let him stick around a little longer.

Now if your fiance has every reason to dislike him and you are ignoring her side of the story without any proof then this complicates things and you need to find your buddy some other place to stay ASAP and apologize for being a dingleberry.

But does it really matter what they argued about, and who’s side was more accurate?

I think the issue here is the friend’s presence in general. In my mind, the fiance is just annoyed with his presence. Doesn’t matter how nice the guy is, doesn’t matter if he’s not purposefully trying to take advantage of the LW…he’s coming between the LW and the fiance. And THAT, I think, is what’s upsetting the fiance. Things change when you have another person live with you for a whole year, a person who isn’t at all involved in the relationship.

If I were her, I’d resent the lack of privacy and I’d resent my fiance for allowing someone to crash for that long. Charity is great, but a year of it is pushing it, especially when your loyalties and devotions are supposed to be to the relationship…given that you promised to MARRY this person.

And to echo what CollegeCat just said above…it just seems to reflect that he doesn’t care all that much about the fiance’s needs. Maybe she’s tired of having a third wheel all the time. Maybe she wishes he’d value the relationship, given that it’s leading to marriage, more than the charity-friendship with this guy. I’d be REALLY upset if I thought the guy I was going to marry valued someone else that much more than me (or more than me at all, really). That’s most women for you, I think.

Actually, it does. If the fiance was totally in the right than I would back her. If it turns out she is 100 percent wrong than, yes, that really does change my entire opinion of the situation. What’s interesting, is that they LW clearly believed the friend over the fiance’… Now why would that be? Gee, I dunno. Perhaps he can tell when she’s lying as he’s seen it before.

Look, the fact that the LW isn’t just dying to defend his maidenfare makes me think that maybe there is much more at work here. It’s an ugly day when you realize that the person you love is actually a deranged and controlling individual. How do I know? Hey, it’s happened to me.

I really do appreciate you arguing an angle that isn’t well represented in the comments. However, I think most people here (including you) are making assumptions on the backstories and motivations for both the friend and fiance. Is she a chronic liar and drama queen? Maybe. Is the friend a total mooch? Well maybe, but the LW doesn’t give us enough info to be sure either way.

What is clear that he is in the middle of two people who don’t like living together, and don’t want to seed ground. Who’s in the right and who’s not is immaterial, the one person who needs to be making the call is the LW. He needs to stand up on his own and make the call. So far it sounds like all he’s done is let himself get pushed back and forth between two strong willed people.

i think if my husband had called me a guest in his house when we lived together and were building a life together i would have been pissed. there is a big difference between a roommate and a fiance.

and i think like many other commenters have said the roommate probably is grating on the nerves of the fiancee. but, if you’re getting married shouldn’t you be talking about asking this guy to move out anyway? and the only other issue i have with letting him stick around longer is that with some people they will always have a story and it may always check out, but at some point you have to say enough is enough.

sorry i meant to add when my husband and i were still engaged, that part didn’t make it in. even if they’re not married yet and still engaged i would be pissed. if you’re living together as an engaged couple, you are more than roommates and you are definitely not a guest in each others home. you are building a life together. so different than a roommate.

I think marriage is more a state of mind than a state of legal being. So thinking “what’s mine is mine until the day I get married” is kind of an immature way for this LW to be thinking, if that’s how he’s thinking. If you’re engaged, you should be thinking in the marriage state of mind. Which means respecting and honoring the person you promised to spend your life with above others.

I think this says more that they shouldn’t have moved in together before marriage – or – this guy has no idea what the commitment he made was.

Really though I would totally let my fiance’s friend stay, for an extended or indefinite time, if she was respectful of the house and us and I didn’t have babies / children. But even then it’s like free baby sitting…so maybe I would.

Well I think if you aren’t at that stage when you get engaged, you shouldn’t be getting engaged. And I tend to agree that maybe this LW didn’t realize the commitment he was making in getting engaged to his fiance.

So what, then? You get to put other people before the person you’re planning to spend your life with up until the Big Day? You get to value her less than other people, or at least act as if you do? Sorry Budj, normally I agree with you, but I just can’t get on this train. If you’re going to marry someone…you should already be thinking in the marriage frame of mind.

I was waiting until the end of this thread to tell you that I agree with you. And I am married by the way. You’re right about the situation not being completely black and white and I don’t think that the LW is obligated to always stand behind his finacee simply because she is his fiancee. I personally think the LW IS being manipulated by both parties and maybe the best thing for him to have done in retrospect is not invite his friend to live with them.

I hadn’t planned on commenting on this post and probably shouldn’t have but … I don’t know … I felt really bad about your comment that you may not be cut out for marriage. I know it was probably written out of frustration but old married chick, statements like this make me sad. Especially since all relationships are unique.

You’re cut out for marriage. And when it happens, I’m sure it will be with someone who is as rational and insightful as you seem to be. There are girls out there like that. Who believe in shades of gray and compromise. I promise.

definitely in no way do i think your opinion makes you not cut out for marriage! everyone obviously has very different opinions on this and i think we all project our own situations on these letters. in my case my now husband and i moved in to his apartment after we were engaged but we both split rent, bills and food. so i guess hearing that i would have been a guest considering those things sort of struck a nerve with me. i was definitely not a guest, i was a partner. like i said though, everyone obviously has very different opinions on this issue!

I can understand that would strike a nerve – it was an apt you were both splitting so you definitely weren’t a guest. I wouldn’t view it that way in that situation. But in this case the LW owns a house.

When I got engaged to my husband, I moved into his condo shortly after. I also owned my own condo, which we sold so that we would have a downpayment for a house together. So, was I a guest? A guest who paid the entire downpayment for the house we live in now?

Generally when people get engaged, it’s because they’ve reached the point where they have realized that the other person is so important to them that they want to have that person in their lives forever. That means that by the time you get engaged, you *already* place that person at the top of your priority list. That’s not something that magically happens on your wedding day, it’s something that should have already happened. If it hasn’t, you probably shouldn’t be getting married.

And I think that’s the issue people are seeing with this LW. Unless the fiancee was totally crazy and out in left field, he should be supporting her over his friend. Maybe the argument they had really was “nothing”, but he’s obviously not realizing that the argument is representative of the relationship between his fiancee and his friend, and that it’s not working. Instead, he took his friend’s side after the argument, which told his fiancee that she’s not a priority to him. The LW needs to think about whether he really cares about her enough to marry her.

Yeah, I completely agree with you, RR. I guess it is all about what an engagement means to different people, but I believe an engagement is when the real, deep, 100% commitment begins, not on the wedding day. Sure, you can back out of it easier, but that shouldn’t affect the content of the relationship or commitment. To me, an engagement only exists because you’re planning out the wedding and the moving in and the name changes and stuff. A couple getting engaged should be 100% committed and 100% ready to get married at any given moment (except for all the stuff like wanting your family to be there, etc).

Budj – I am normally in agreement with you but I think you are wrong in this case. Honestly from the sound of the disagreements, there is not ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ side to the story. Rather, it sounds like two personalities who are butting heads and the LW can’t decide who has the more legitimate stance. I am not saying that a spouse should always agree with their partner, but it sounds like the LW has been dismissing his fiancee’s feelings for a long time and now it has come to a head. Something has to give and it should be an easy choice. His friend is not a real tenant while his fiancee is someone he plans to live the rest of his life in a shared space. The LW and his fiancee did not plan to have roommates and therefore were probably not equipped to deal with an interloper into their relationship, especially one that they didn’t both agree on.

What irritates me about this is not that your friend is having a hard time and has overstayed his welcome. It’s that he told you he was tired of your fiancee calling all the shots. If he doesn’t want your fiancee calling the shots, that means that he feels he should be the one calling them. LW, you need to stop being so wishy washy and take a stand. Your friend is recognizing that you aren’t taking a position of your own, and he’s taking advantage of it. He knows you are a people pleaser. You need to take a firm stance, and you need to own it. Don’t put it off on your fiancee, because that’s not fair to her. Say that you two are trying to start your lives together, and you need the space for just the two of you. And then, if you can, offer to help him in another way so that you can keep your friendship with him. Maybe you could offer to help him pay for the transmission so that he can get back on his feet faster. And really, you don’t want to completely throw him out on his ass. But like everyone else said, this is a woman you committed to. She should be your number one.

I agree with you that the roommate was out of line for accusing her of calling the shots – however – the LW does seem to go where the wind blows so it isn’t exactly a false statement…it just makes the roommate a hypocrite.

Yeah, I think the fact that it makes him hypocritical is a huge part of what makes that comment out of line. It’s not okay for her to call the shots, but it is okay if he does it? It is almost blatantly stating that he feels he should have priority over her.

I’m betting when you pointed that out to your friend, you weren’t using that as leverage for getting something that you wanted, right? You were probably just trying to be a good friend. I doubt that the LW’s friend is bringing this up out of concern for the LW’s future since he’s only now bringing it up when he has the potential to get something out of it.

Actually, I did want something. I wanted my friend back. If the guy has been living with them, there is a very good chance he has been holding his tongue and is finally fed up and said as much. I know it took me a long time to work to butt into my friend’s business.

I’m mainly getting it from these two factors. 1) The LW clearly believes the friend over the fiance’ about the fight. And 2) The words of the friend stating that the fiance’ is controlling gave the LW so much pause.

Long, long ago, a friend of mine once hated my boyfriend for reasons I never quite understood. She always threw around the “controlling” card. I always laughed it off because it simply wasn’t true. If anything, I was the controlling one in that relationship… At any rate, the fact that the words struck such a chord is illuminating and worth looking into. Maybe he should start asking some other people what they think of his fiance’? Seriously… If she is truly just wonderful, then they will probably all say as much. If they don’t….well….

Yeah, I get where you’re coming from about it. I just figured that the LW took pause to the comment because he can see it clearly happening in this one situation, which has been happening for a while so it clearly stands out quite a bit. The LW comes across as torn to me. He seems like someone who really wants to help his friend, but now the fiancee is wanting to put an end to it. He probably does feel at least a little controlled here, but in this situation it’s hard for us to determine what is excessive control, and what is the normal course of compromise in a relationship. Most of us believe that the fiancee has at least some say in this situation, so the lines between controlling and asserting an opinion are kind of blurred here. The LW should definitely consider the patterns in their relationship before this one situation started though.

It sounds like the LW has trouble making up his own mind and does what people tell him to do. It’s just another reason to wait to get married. I’m not sure that his fiance respects him and his friend doesn’t seem to either.

The biggest red flag for me in the letter is the friend jumping to, “I’m tired of your fiancee always calling the shots.”

This screams of disrespect. The LW might be the only one on the title and mortgage until the ceremony, but it’s the girlfriend’s home as well as it’s the LW’s home. In my home I have an equal say about matters, no greater and no lesser, I think that’s a fair shake to extend to anyone. If the LW doesn’t feel that way, given the commitments stated in the letter, then that’s a lack of respect. If the long-term house guest doesn’t feel that way, and maybe he’s getting that it’s okay to feel that way from the LW, that’s more disrespect.

Co-habitating and engaged to be married is not the same thing as marriage under the law, but when the hell did anyone’s heart ever give a one-eyed gecko about what a bunch of legislators said. This is not a matter before the courts, it’s an issue to be resolved between beloveds. If you love her and you asked her to move in and you plan to marry her, that’s a commitment from the heart. Failing to give her equal say in household business carries a distinct odor of selfishness.

At some point in everyone’s life there’s a need for a rectal-cranial extraction process. To accomplish that here I suggest the LW take a unbiased look at everyone’s motivations, what each person has at stake if they don’t get what they want, and the damage predictions pending his decision. Put away platatudes like “Bros before Hos” and “being controlled” and make an adult decision among less-than-perfect choices.

Most comments agree with Wendy that it’s all the friend’s fault. While he should have maned up and apologized at least to the extent of being sorry that the fiancee feeling that way. Rent paying only makes him a paying guest and he should behave as one. I’ve been in his shoes and my buddy’s wife and I were at odds for several months. My girlfriend was a part owner and paid extra for my being there. We all tried to work things out but the conflict continued until that house was sold. Not every situation can be resolved. The LW has all the legal leverage and needs to decide if this woman is the only person he wants to live with. I’d question it but we don’t know what the hub-bub was about so maybe she has a valid point and maybe not.

Yeah, listen to your miserable buddy.. Break up with the woman that you wanted to become your wife, and live happily ever after with your roommate, because essentially that is your choice, because he is not going anywhere unless you throw him out.

But seriously, no, she is not controlling. She is very patient. What if the transmission thing were to happen at the end of the original march deadline, would you have let him stay longer? And what if something were to happen even after that, then what? Your friend is using you and pulling the classic ”you are whipped if you are considerate of your fiancée’s feelings” card. She should definitely take priority over your friend.

You NEED privacy in your own home. No matter how good of a roommate he is, he is intruding into your and your fiancée’s personal space. There’s no getting away from that. You want to have a simple quiet evening at home, and you can’t because he is there. You want to go to the bathroom at night, and you have to get dressed because he is there. You want to walk around in your ugliest and most comfortable sweats and you can’t because he is there, and so on.. You get the picture. For some people, it is impossible to relax, when there is someone there is a relative stranger in the house.

Also, he is not a ”friend indeed”. If he were, he would do everything to help your relationship with the woman you love. He would apologize to her, and not try and cause a rift between you two.

P. S. Bros before hos only applies when you are either in high school, or literally, your brother is more important than a random chick. You are not in high school any more, and the chick is a woman with whom you have decided to spend the rest of your life. So unless this guy is a close relative of yours, she has every right to expect you to back her up on this.

One million green thumbs! For this: “Your friend is using you and pulling the classic ”you are whipped if you are considerate of your fiancée’s feelings” card.” And this: “Bros before hos only applies when you are either in high school, or literally, your brother is more important than a random chick.”

Its not needy to have needs! Also its extremely insulting to imply that the woman he at least at one point wanted to marry and be with forever is now a “ho.” Brothers before fiances before random squatter buddies before actual hookers.

Ugh.. You’re so right about how an extra roommate seeps into all the little things. The fiancee probably has to wear a bra instead of lounging in her pjs on the couch. They can’t do things like leave the bathroom door open while showering, or running to answer the phone when they’re not completely dressed. Their sex life is most certainly affected by this guy being here. Having him there for a little while is being a good friend. Keeping him there for this long is being a bad fiance.

The first thing I do when I get home from work is take off my bra and put on a pair of pj pants. When I stay at my boyfriend’s house, because he has a roommate, I can’t do that. Its annoying, but at least its not every day. Some weekend days I spend all day lounging in states of undress. If I had to go a year wearing a bra from wake-up until bedtime without break, I would be angry and on edge from that alone. Throw in a few dirty forks and I might be close to murder.

Your fiancé was fine with your friend moving in until something insignificant rubbed her the wrong way. She got upset because you saw both sides and didn’t demand he apologize, instead you wanted everyone to let it go. She started nitpicking things until you finally decided to just tell your friend to go. So you settled on a timeline with your fiancé for when your friend needed to be out. He was going to leave early but then ran into trouble with his car and would like to stay until the original timeline. Your fiancé is now upset and is giving you an ultimatum about moving out.

It sounds like you resent your fiancé for being upset that you didn’t automatically share her opinion about the silly argument. You come across as resentful that you are trying to have a peaceful resolution and that effort isn’t enough for her. Nobody likes to be handed an ultimatum especially over something that you’ve been trying to fix.

There are a lot of issues here. You mention you met your fiancée shortly after having your house built. Do you consider this house equally hers? From her perspective she probably felt like you are treating your friend with equal regard as her. Because she is going to be your wife she probably expects you to back her up over something that was important to her even (or especially) if it was stupid to you. Her insisting that the roommate move out might have been a way of asserting that the house is hers, too and that her opinions should be valued. It does sound like there are control issues with both of you but they are pretty normal ones early in marriage. What isn’t normal is a spectator.

Unfortunately you have a third wheel, which is the last thing you need right now regardless of who is right and who is wrong. If the roommate is any kind of friend he will understand that you and your fiancé need to sort things out without him around. Surly he can find someone else to take him in, especially if he doesn’t have a job keeping him in the area. That should be priority one. Then you can start working on your communication and control issues with your fiancé. Good luck.

After reading this letter a few times through, it really sounds like you’re siding with your friend, which can’t be making your fiancee too happy. The first obvious clue is that when he had a different side of the story, you told her to let it go instead of asking him to just apologize anyway to keep the peace. A more subtle clue is that you said “she became aggravated by little things she said he would do,” which indicates that you don’t fully believe her. You’re entitled to think she’s making mountains out of molehills about a couple dirty utensils in the sink, but your wording says that you don’t even believe that he did leave utensils in the sink. Finally, the fact that your friend’s comment that your fiancee always calls the shots spurred you to write into an advice column indicates that you think he may have a point.

I don’t know your fiancee and we don’t know your friend, so I can’t say for sure that your friend is a lazy freeloader or that your fiancee is controlling. All I can say is that it sounds from your letter like you are strongly siding with your friend. Maybe you don’t realize you’re doing this, but I guarantee your fiancee can sense it, and that’s probably a big part of her frustration. I think you need to do some soul searching and figure out if you WANT to be on your fiancee’s side – now and for the rest of your life. If you do, then you’ve got to get your friend out of the house ASAP, and work on ways to show her support and respect even when you think she’s being silly. If you don’t, or think you won’t be able to always give her that support and respect, you should let her move out and on with her life.

“The first obvious clue is that when he had a different side of the story, you told her to let it go instead of asking him to just apologize anyway to keep the peace.”

If the fiancee was in the wrong, why should the roommate have to apologize for anything? THAT is a sign that she is controlling. That she bitches about things so much that you have to just sigh and apologize so she gets her way and stops complaining. You’re going to go bat-shit crazy because I left a spoon in the sink? LW, give in to this woman now and you are showing her that all she has to do is nit-pick at you until she gets her way every time. SHE agreed to the March timeline. Tell her to suck it up.

Am I the only one that thinks that the fiance is the unreasonable one here? If she wanted an apology after the initial tiff, she should have been the one to go ask for it and listen to the roommates side. Instead she acted like a junior high schooler and made the LW do it for her, putting him in the middle. Then, she not happy with the outcome of the situation that SHE created (getting an apology via the fiance) and proceeds to nit pick the shit out of everything that the roommate does. So, she finally gets her way and the LW gives the roommate a generous move out date – which the fiance agreed to – and now because the roommate has fallen on hard times and isn’t able to move out by the moved-up date that HE decided on, she’s giving an ultimatum? What. A. Drama Queen.

The roommate is right, the fiance is calling all of the shots and the LW apparently has no spine because he just caves to her every demand. He doesn’t say whether the fiance is helping with rent, but since the roommate is – he’s a tenant and that makes it his house too. This honestly just sounds like a territory dispute. She has declared that the house is HERS and doesn’t want any interlopers in her space. I suppose that’s her right, but it doesn’t make her the patient saint that you guys are trying to make her into.

You are right, to a point. But if she had started counting on him being out by December… maybe planning to have a friend of her own come stay, or to clean up that room he’s been squatting in, or to just finally enjoy a moment of privacy in her own home and now it’s being ripped out from under her and she has to be stuck with him for 4 more months… that’s really upsetting. And if she can go get an apartment until March and it would make her happy and give her a place to blow off steam, then why not? Why shouldn’t she go get what she wants?

Aside from that the major question for the LW is: do you want to marry this woman or not? If yes, then its time to take her side over your friend for basically the first time since he’s moved in and kick the guy out. The actual argument is less important than the gesture of being on her side. If not, let her leave and keep bro-ing it out with your couch bum.

She has every right to call the shots in what I hope she considers her home too. And if the LW makes the distinction between “fiencée=guest” and “wife=equal partner”, then he is not ready for marriage.

No, it’s her turn to act like a freaking adult instead of throwing a tantrum and giving ultimatums when things don’t go the way she wanted. Life happens. If she can’t deal with that, maybe the LW shouldn’t be marrying her.

So she should just suck it up, continue to live in a home that clearly angers her every day, and end up resentful of her fiance? I think taking care of and standing up for yourself is much more adult than sticking around for so long when she’s clearly unhappy.

Or she could be a grown up. Clearly, that is a revolutionary idea around here. But many should try it. See, she isn’t standing up for herself. Instead she is being a petty, vengeful shrew. There’s actually a huge difference… That many on here continually fail to grasp that is both telling and sad.

Then what exactly do you think is the most grown up thing for her to do? I think that leaving when she realizes she cannot take it anymore is a pretty responsible decision. Ultimatums are not good, no, but at least she is being honest about how important it is to her. She should not be required to suck it up indefinitely. If you have another solution that would actually be effective, please describe it.

Thank you for your comment! People think that ultimatums are bad things. The fiancee is giving the LW a choice, and stating her corresponding actions. The fiancee is not forcing the LW to do anything, she is simply stating her limits. It is up to him to weigh the consequences of what he decides. Would it be better for the fiancee to let the LW decide what to do and then tell him what she is going to do, or is it better for her to give him a heads up as to what her own actions will be?

And so what? She absolutely has the right to say if you do X, I will do Y – everyone has that right. Better to let someone know your plans in advance than to blindside them. That way the decisionmaker (in this case the LW) has the information he needs to weigh his options.

Stupidest argument. She’s been compromising the whole time? From which galaxy did you draw that conclusion? There is no indication of her showing an iota of a compromising bone mass.

Yikes, to think I used to actually take feedback from this forum quite seriously, but the ya-ya sisterhood cape doesn’t allow for some sanity to prevail anymore. Lately, it’s erring on the side of supporting any bullshit as long as it favours the “woman”

Excuse me, there is no need to be rude when expressing a differing opinion. I have no use for that, and neither does anyone else on DW.

She’s been compromising by putting up with his stay for a year now, which is likely longer than she anticipated him being in her home. She’s been very patient this whole time.

You may not agree with me, and that is quite normal. People disagree on DearWendy every single day, and it’s generally done in a civilized manner. You can call my opinions stupid or bullshit or “ya-ya sisterhood” if you want, but that doesn’t strengthen anything you’re saying. It just reflects poorly on your character and your conversational skills. If you no longer care to read what everyone is writing on DearWendy, by all means, no one will stop you from leaving.

Dude, I think there is a fundemental way of looking at things which is why you are disagreeing with the majority here. Most of the Women are assuming that when you move in with a fiance that it means you want a partner and an equal. It makes the relationship more important than a regular roommate. It seems like you are seeing this as a freeloading girl mooching off his money and demanding control of everything. Had he said girlfriend, I think the terms would be more mixed.

I think there is a lot of support for the fiancee here, I hope you do see though, that there are some of us that don’t agree with that position, I know I don’t! I wish you’d phrased your 2nd paragraph differently so your intent could be heard instead of “women are so clingy and don’t think beyond whether someone has a snatch or not”. My take, anyway.

“it doesn’t make her the patient saint that you guys are trying to make her into.” This is the main problem that I have with how everyone is looking at this situation: pretty much everyone is putting the fiance on a pedestal, and no one deserves to be put on a pedestal, NO ONE. Everyone has their faults and no one is faultless in a difficult situation like LW’s. Also, when I read that she expected that LW to play mediator in the argument, my first thought was ‘are these people in high school?’. He’s her fiance, not her problem solver/mediator. If she had a problem with how his friend handled a minor argument (and honestly if it wasn’t major issue, why is she holding an immature grudge and making a mountain out of a molehill in the first place?), she should have gone to the friend and handled it herself. Who knows, maybe she would have gotten the apology just for going to handle it herself; I know I would be more inclined to apologize to someone even if I didn’t agree with them completely if they approached me themselves in a rational manner rather than sending a messenger with demands.

My other main issue with what everyone is saying is that most people seem to be saying that he should have sided with the fiance just because she’s his fiance…… that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard and here’s why: in ALL situations, when there is a dispute, you side with whoever you think is right and/or whoever is being most rational. You don’t side with someone just because of how you know them (whether it be lifelong friend, significant other, family, etc). Call me crazy but I was always under the impression that siding with someone for any other reason than you agreeing with them was WRONG. I don’t know about anyone else but lately I seem to be running into the “significant others can do no wrong” attitude a lot and I’m sorry, just because you are dating someone does NOT mean that you are excused from all other general social rules and courtesies of society and from being a mature, rational adult.

THIS. I 100% agree with you that which side a person is on should depend on which side is RIGHT, not who is one that side with them. What ever happened to looking at the facts and making up ones own mind? Do any of you just blindly agree with your spouse because they’re whose side you’re “supposed to be on”?

Siding with who you think is right has nothing to with “being right”; it has to do with having enough of a backbone to be able to think for yourself and make your own decisions because otherwise no one else is going to want to deal with you if they think that you’re just going to be a puppet to everyone else’s whims.

It appears, Ani, that you and I are among the few on here who think everybody suggesting that the LW should always automatically take his fiance’s side is kinda bordering on being, well, insane…

The lack of maturity that accompanies such thinking is, frankly, mind-blowing… If you have to agree with absolutely whatever your partner thinks just to keep the peace so you can “be happy” — you aren’t in a relationship, but a dictatorship. And if that’s what you want for yourself, good luck with that.

The school of thought that “You should support your SO even if you’re not sure that they’re right” is EXACTLY how men convince women to condone their mental behavior and then the woman ends up in an abusive situation, or how one person ends up losing their identity to the other if they’re constantly having to support the other’s feelings and decisions even if they go against that person’s feelings and opinions. It goes both ways.

Oh, but Britannia, you silly girl! It’s different if it’s the women calling all the shots and delivering ultimatums as they are only looking out for their feelings…

You know, I have always thought that while men definitely have the market cornered (by far!) when it come to physical abuse, women are the sneaky leaders when it comes to dishing out mental abuse. Seriously, some of the things that my female friends say to their significant others are simply SHOCKING…

Honestly, I agree. The hypocrisy that has become synonymous with feminism/”sisterhood” really pisses me off. Like that letter a while ago about a girl “throwing knees” at her boyfriend… that kind of crap happens a lot in relationships. Everyone would get all up in a hubbub if it were a man “throwing palms” at a woman, essentially threatening to slap her across the face, but mimicking the act of crushing a man’s genitals? Oh, no big deal, he’s a man, he can deal with it. It’s the same shit with the way women speak to their men. I’ve seen this exact scenario happen… [Girl: I told you to clean the kitchen. Guy: Sorry, I got too involved with my college essay. Girl: What the fuck? You were supposed to do that. Do I have to do everything for you? Guy: I’ll get to it tonight. Girl: God, you’re fucking useless!] Yeah, if a guy did that to a girl… he’d be crucified.

Another great example? That same girl, when discussing how she was going to decorate the house the guy just bought, responded to my question of what the guy was thinking about her paint color decisions (mind you, she didn’t pay a dime for a damn thing, she was a pure mooch) by saying: “Oh, he’ll just have to deal with whatever I decide.” Um… yeah.

I think people are getting a bit carried away with the assumptions here. The way I see this, the LW is obviously mature enough to buy a house and to decide to get married. And while I am sure that the girl in question is not perfect, she was OK with the friend staying with them for awhile. The problem is that while everyone agrees that helping out a friend is good and noble, there should be a limit to the hospitality considering the fact that the LW’s initial intention was to share the home with the women he loves. I really can’t blame the girl for wanting to be comfortable and happy in what is supposed to be her home too.

I’m not saying he should automatically take his fiances side. In this situation I think that all three people involved are immature. I think that the fiance and the friend have reached a point where neither one of them has any respect for the other and neither of them wants to try to get along for the sake of the LW. In this situation he can’t choose to keep both of them in his house. He has three options. He can choose the fiance, he can choose the friend or he can choose neither of them but having all three of them continue to live together is no longer an option. Personally, I don’t think that this couple is ready to get married. I don’t think that they’ve developed joint problem solving skills. They don’t seem to be able to reach a concensus and I’m not sure that either of them respects the other. The LW doesn’t seem able to form an opinion about whether his fiance is controlling or honest. He indicates he believes she will blow up trivial situations into full blown confrontations. In spite of all of that he’s choosen to become engaged to this woman so I’m assuming he wants and intends to marry her and so I’m assuming she is a priority in his life and that when push comes to shove he’ll choose her over the friend. Not because there is a right or wrong in this situation, it takes two to constantly quibble over the little things. It takes someone leaving forks in the sink and someone to be annoyed over forks in the sink. Either of them could have been the bigger person and ended the quibble. I think that if he is forced to choose between them he should choose the one he has promised to spend his life with but if he is having doubts about that, now might be the time to have both the fiance and the friend move out. I don’t think there is a bigger, better person in this situation. I do think the LW should approach this marriage with caution. It’s easier to delay a marriage until you’re certain that it’s right than to get divorced later.

“in ALL situations, when there is a dispute, you side with whoever you think is right and/or whoever is being most rational. You don’t side with someone just because of how you know them (whether it be lifelong friend, significant other, family, etc).”

This attitude will not get you very far in your personal relationships. You can try to be “right” all you want to, but one of the most important facets of a relationship is support. Sometimes you have to support your SO just because those are your roles with each other. (That is, if you want to continue having that SO). In those situations, it’s best to be as diplomatic as possible to any other parties involved. Most reasonable, mature adults understand that sometimes you just have to take your wife’s (or husband’s, bf’s, etc) side, and that doesn’t always reflect the decision you would have come to on your own.

You can choose to take the “right” side for as long as you want. That usually lands people with multiple divorces and loneliness in old age.

I’m not saying that the SO can do no wrong. Usually, a person should try to mediate and work things out first. But in a situation like the LW’s where the SO is very seriously affected by it, a person (the LW in this case) has to examine whether it’s more important to be right, or to remain in their happy, loving relationship. You can’t always have both.

In this instance we can’t tell who was right or wrong in the dispute and we don’t know that the LW can tell either. So, we look at his relationship with each party and decide based on that. If the LW would like to tell us what the dispute was about and where each side stood in the dispute then we might change our minds. We can only base this on what we know and most of what we know is about relationships.

It has nothing to do with being “right”. You probably shouldn’t be in a relationship with someone who can’t have to maturity to realize that it is VERY unrealistic to expect ANYONE in your life to side with you 24/7. Unrealistic expectations is what leads to “multiple divorces and loneliness in old age”. Disagreeing with someone over one simple thing doesn’t mean you’re not supportive; not being supportive would be taking an attitude of “I don’t agree with you and you can’t think like that/you have to agree with MY ideas/you have to do this instead”. And being diplomatic doesn’t mean you have to side with your SO; you can be diplomatic by being a neutral party and not siding with anyone……

Thank you! I too am bothered by the assumption of “you must stand by your fiancee just because she’s your fiancee and you’re building a life together.” As if he won’t ever see his friend again after the wedding? The type of relationship you have with someone does not make that person in the right in every situation.

The three of them had a working compromise – March – and the roommate thought it was a possibility that he could leave early. Turns out he can’t, but the fiancee needs to be kind enough to give him a little more time (who was calling her kind and generous before? Does she no longer have to be kind and generous because she’s stressed out now? Um, no.)

The other thing that is very interesting that nobody seems to be paying much attention to is that, hey, it’s his house. They’re not married yet. So, I wonder…does she pay any rent? Probably not. If so, than SHE is the mooch. Seriously. Think about it.

I think that ends once you get engaged because it’s understood that you’re beginning to prepare for a life together. Just “shacked up”? Then yes, she’d be a mooch if she wasn’t contributing. But now she’s his fiancee, and I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt that she’s contributing to the household in some way even if it’s not a monetary commitment.

A mooch is a mooch regardless of whether or not there’s a ring on their finger, if they’re not married. Actually, I believe that someone deserves to be called a mooch if they don’t contribute to the household even after someone gets married. That’s when a mooch starts being called a dead-beat. If she’s not contributing to the living expenses, or in some way contributing to the maintenance of the household, it doesn’t matter that she’s the fiance – she’s still mooching off the LW.

Even if she is not contributing financially, if the LW is satisfied with their arrangement, I don’t think it is right to call her a mooch. He invited her to share his house and his life. Just that gives her at least an equal say in this case.

Wait so it my mother, who was a stay at home mom for 22 years, a mooch? Because she didn’t financially contribute to the household. Even if the LW’s fiancee doesn’t pay any money to the household, there are other ways to contribute. Maybe she does all the cooking or cleaning or laundry or whatever. Does that still make her a mooch? And there is still a difference between your girlfriend/fiancee/wife that you invite to live with you and your buddy you let crash for awhile, even if one is paying rent and the other isn’t or even if both are paying equal rent or any other financial arrangements. If you invite her to live with you as a romantic partner, it should also be as a household partner.

Relationships are usually more complicated than that though. Things are not always about dollar amounts in romantic relationships, and things are not always split 50/50 when couples try not to nickel and dime each other. I don’t think she is mooching off of the LW if the LW had her move in with the intentions of her living there forever and never paying rent. If that was what he wanted, then it’s not mooching. We really don’t know enough about their situation to know why she moved in with him and what those details are. For all we know, their arrangement could be that in exchange for living there, she pays the utility bill, or buys all the groceries, or keeps everything clean, or any number of things. The economy of a relationship or a family (which their relationship is soon to become) is based on a combination of money, labor, time, planning, and all sorts of things.

Well, heck. You all seem to be assuming that they friend is a mooch –yet we know that he pays rent. That he has never NOT paid it. Meanwhile, the lW curiously said nothing about his fiance paying for anything and I do think that — if she was paying — it would be beyond pertinent to the letter and would have come simply up. “Moreover, she feels that since she is also paying part of the mortgage she has an equal say as to who lives here and who does not…” The fact that this did not come up leads me to believe that I am right and that she is being a bit of a mooch…

I haven’t been assuming that the friend is a mooch. But it is easy to see that he is not entirely welcome in the home anymore. I think it comes down to intention. The LW probably intended to have his fiancee live with him forever (you know, the whole marriage thing). He didn’t intend on the friend living there forever, though. Even if the friend is paying his portion of the rent, that doesn’t negate the fact that he was not drawn into the original plan here, and his welcome was intended to be temporary. He may be compliant with the rent, but he’s really pushing his limits with the extent of the stay. Assuming that the fiancee is supposed to be living there forever, she should have some heavy input in who else ends up living in the house with them. It’s not all about mooching. Sometimes it’s just about who’s supposed to be where, when, and for how long.

Obviously, I am not referring to you then. But numerous others on here have used the word mooch. And I think it is simply unwarranted. Now had he been crashing in the guest room for free all these months it would be an entirely different story… Instead, he’s been paying his rent on time. Money they probably desperately need as the house is plummeting in value and they are now underwater… 😉

I think that LW would have mentioned that, if she does, because he had to describe how his friend/roommate contributes. For the sake of logical conclusion, the LW should have included information about how the fiance contributes if he wanted us to consider who has more “right” than the other in the disagreement between fiance vs friend.

I think he would have mentioned if she didn’t work. It would have been something like I invited my fiance to move in with me because she was unemployed. He never mentions his fiance as being down and out but mentions the bad luck of his friend. I think that since he discussed bad luck he would have mentioned his fiance if she was the same as the friend. It seemed to me he had his fiance live with him because he wanted the relationship and he had the friend living with them because he wanted to help the friend. He never mentions the fiance as needing his help and if she can move with such short notice she either has an income or a family she can go to and in this situation probably both. She doesn’t seem to be worried about where she will go or how she will get by while the friend doesn’t seem to know how he will make ends meet if he has to move out.

So doesn’t that make it seem like she should have a little more sympathy for the roommate, since she’s so well off that she can move out at basically a moment’s notice while he can’t even afford to get his car fixed without having a major dent in his ability to pay for basic living expenses?

I’d cease the sympathy if he weren’t actively trying to get his shit together and get out. Obviously he doesn’t enjoy staying with the fiance much and is trying to move out ASAP… it’s just that ASAP isn’t soon enough for the fiance! I’m quite sure that she would greatly appreciate the hospitality and friendship if the situation were reversed and she were the one on the down-and-out. And she’d also be incredibly, incredibly hurt if her best friend threw her out because their SO had a problem with the way she accidentally leaves a fork or two in the sink on occasion.

Yes, it would be generous for her to just let him stay there without any sort of protest on her part, but she does not owe him anything. Helping someone out once should not mean that you have to continue to help them out. That attitude scares off a lot of people from helping out in the first place. Assistance is there for a while when you’re down and out. You take what you can, and when that welcome or assistance is over, you thank the person and move on. The fiancee feels that the welcome is over, so if the LW agrees with her, then it is time for the friend to express his gratitude and either move out on his own, or find someone else to stay with.

Kicking him out would make the last year’s worth of help completely worthless! If the fiance insists on kicking him out, then he’ll be back at square one and all that help that LW has provided will be for nothing. It makes much more sense to see this helping hand through and actually see him on to the next step of his life than to kick him out, back to square one, and make him work his way up again. That will make the last year of LW’s life AND the roommate’s life a complete waste of effort. That doesn’t make any sense at all.

I can’t tell if you’re being facetious or not. A year of help can be worthless? Remind me of that next time I let someone stay with me for a year. That’s an outrageous notion. He wouldn’t be back at square one, he’d be more than a year richer in savings. I can’t imagine whatever rent he’s paying is high or even near what it would be if he had his own space. It seems very fishy to me that he’s gone more than a year living utility, property tax, etc free and has no savings or moving money. How long does the LW need to host him before his help “counts?” Until he has a down payment for a house all saved up? I’m sorry, but in any context the friend has overstayed his welcome. I’m a bleeding heart liberal who believes in any social program out there, but I also believe in personal responsibility and a YEAR later is too long to be getting this much help from ANYONE. This coming from someone who lived in her car to save money and avoid freeloading off of friends and relatives.

I work in an emergency shelter for homeless women with children and for women fleeing domestic violence. We, and every other shelter out there, have limits for how long an individual can stay with us. We have a fully functioning social program, where we help the clients apply for housing, get financial assistance, overcome obstacles in school enrollment for their children, help them continue their own education, help them get Medicare. You name it, and we help them with it. Our program is only one month long, and we manage to get the majority of our clients into stable housing before they leave the shelter. The ones that don’t get into an apartment before their time is up at our shelter always leave with something else they got from it, and they usually are very close to getting their housing.

Sometimes we have to ask people to leave early. If they are overly disrespectful to staff on multiple occasions, if they get into fights with other clients, if they tell an outsider that another client is staying there (since we’re domestic violence), etc. Even those clients leave getting something out of it. They are all helped. Maybe they didn’t get optimum help, but they did get help. Maybe they just walked away with a winter coat and Medicare, but that makes a big difference. And regardless, it’s one less month that they were on the streets. There’s no telling what we kept them away from in that time.

Help is help. You help someone as long as you can, and then when you reach a point where continuing help would harm yourself, you stop. The average person should not be harming themselves in order to help someone else. It’s great to help, but individuals are responsible for recognizing when they have to stop for their own good. Someone always walks away better off. I find it difficult to believe that my clients who come in homeless, not having bathed in months, with disabilities, without insurance, with not a dime in their pocket, can get up on their feet in a month, when an employed individual can’t do it in a year.

She has had sympathy for the friend and he has been able to live with them for a year. I don’t know many people who couldn’t save enough money in a year to pay for a deposit on a new place. This guy hasn’t saved any money because he doesn’t yet have enough to pay for a transmission, let alone a deposit on a new place to stay. That tells me he has made no effort to find his own place and wasn’t planning on moving out because if he was he would have been saving for it or his current job doesn’t pay enough for him to be self-supporting. In either case, he can’t live with them indefinitely because over the long run it won’t work for them as a couple. They need to build their relationship and it is very hard to do that with a third person always involved. They need to see if the two of them are compatible and again they can’t do that when they are a threesome.

My husband and I took in a friend and she stayed with us for five months when our son was a two-year-old. In that five months she managed to save the money for a deposit on an apartment even though she was a part-time waitress and was going to college full time. After she moved out another friend wanted to stay with us and we said no because we realized having an extra person in the house interfered with our family life and we had to make our family our priority. We had an obligation to put the needs of our marriage ahead of the needs of our friend.

We’re making assumptions about the roommate’s finances, and we also don’t know where he lives. If it’s Chicago or some other high priced city and he had no savings when he lost his job, then it’s reasonable to assume that he is totally boned. There could be hospital bills, debt, god knows what. Life happens to everyone, and if the fiance really can’t handle 4 more months of being sympathetic to him then I sincerely hope her karma never swings in such a way that she has to rely on the compassion of others.

Yes “we”, including you. You said above, time stamped after this comment, that if he gets kicked out he’ll be “back at square one”. We don’t know that. We have no idea what his financial situation is or what he can afford. Maybe he can’t afford the kind of apartment he wants/needs if he moves out sooner thanks to the transmission eating away some savings. Or maybe it would just make things really tight for him around the holidays. Either way, that’s not really the point.

The LW has been more than generous in opening his home, but his friend’s situation is not his responsibility to fix. It is wonderful that he has been so helpful so far, absolutely. He sounds like a great friend. But he is not obligated to help his friend indefinitely, especially at the expense of his romantic relationship. In my opinion, the fiancee has been generous as well in sacrificing her privacy thus far. It is her prerogative to put a limit on how much she is willing to sacrifice, and it does not make her a bad or unreasonable person, especially given how long it’s been. If she were writing in I would tell her it sounds entirely reasonable, provided she understood that this LW could end up accepting her move-out. And that is his choice to make now – allow his fiancee to move out or support her and try to work out a way to have the friend move out sooner. I think he needs to decide where he stands on the issue, since he doesn’t seem to know, but IMO while the fiancee’s behaviour hasn’t been perfect, she has been more patient than many would be in the same situation.

If she’s ready and able to move out, if she’s of an age with the LW (who was old enough to build a house), then presumably she’s employed/has savings. Not necessarily, no–she could move in with her parents, but I assume she’s financially at least independent.

meh, I’ve just read this letter a few times and skimmed through the comments, and most people seem to think that the LW needs to choose a side once and for all. I’m not really all that sure if choosing anyone’s side would be all that productive because I can definitely sympathize with both the fiancee and the friend.

On the one hand, the fiancee was accommodating of the friend in the beginning and even felt bad for him. Then “something silly” (I really wish the LW had elaborated on what exactly had happened) made them dislike each other. LW, when you got your friend’s side of the story and then told your fiancee to “just let it go,” I imagine she got really pissed and then spent the next month trying to get you to see her side. She just wants you to acknowledge that she had legitimate reasons to be upset about that silly thing that happened and wanted you to validate her feelings. It seems like you kept on defending your friend, and she’s sick of the whole “it’s me against my fiancee and his friend” situation.

As for the friend, getting laid off and then getting a job at a significantly reduced salary must suck. It must have been a relief for him on some level to know that he could count on you as a friend. From what I get from your letter, it seems like he’s made himself a little too comfortable and plans on sticking around for as long as humanly possible.

I think the main issue here is that boundaries have been crossed and clear rules have not been established. The first thing that needs to happen is for your friend to come up with a concrete move out plan that includes him signing a contract to have him move somewhere else. If he doesn’t do this now, then he’s not going to do it for possibly years because there’ll always be something that comes up (today it’s the transmission, tomorrow he’s gotten laid off again or something). If your friend comes up to you to complain, then patiently explain to him that it’s been x months and that you’ve enjoyed having him as a roommate, but enough is enough. Remind him that he’s already stated that he doesn’t want to overstay his welcome, so it’s time for him to start moving on.

Don’t worry about making everyone happy. You can never make everyone happy, but at least you can try to make them less disgruntled. Good luck!

I’d like to know more about the something silly and also would really like to know the ages of everyone involved in this situation. Otherwise, we all just project our own situations on these people and who knows how close to reality we are.

Exactly. From the information that LW gave us, I’d say that the finance is blowing something out of proportion and demanding LW to take sides, which isn’t fair to LW nor a very mature action on her part. Granted, it could be something the LW considers “silly” but the rest of us see as being more serious…..

LW, when you asked your friend to leave, did you blame it all on your fiancée? I think you need to take equal ownership in this, or else you’re friend won’t take you seriously and will continue to try a and pull the “she’s controlling you” card. I know it’s easy to make her out as the bad guy, but your friend will likely keep taking advantage of your generosity for as long as you avoid taking equal responsibility in the decision.

When deciding what to do in this, or any situation, consider your responsibilities and priorities. Your top responsibility at this point is to your job so that you can pay your mortgage and any other bills you have in your name. Your priorities are those things that aren’t responsibilites but that you value highly. I’m assuming your fiance is a priority. You don’t need to support her or provide her with a place to live but you live with her because you love her and she is the most important person in your life now. So, determine your responsibilities and priorities and put those first. In this case your fiance and your friend can no longer tolerate each other and so you’re going to have to pick one to keep. Which one is your priority? Which one do you value most highly? To look at it another way, would you allow your friend to come between you and your job? Would you be willing to give up your job for him? What about your house? If not those, why would you give up your fiance for him?

I hope you’re not planning to get married soon. Please give yourself time to make sure this relationship is one that can last a lifetime. It will last a few more years before marriage if it is the type to last until death do you part. The two of you need some time alone to see how you feel about each other and to see how well you communicate and make decisions together. So far the two of you haven’t done very well coming to a joint decision in this situation. Take this situation as a warning that the two of you aren’t yet ready for marriage. You need to see if you have shared values and shared priorities. You both need to learn how to express yourselves better and to value the concerns of each other.

I really, really wish I could hear the friend and fiancée’s sides here. It’s impossible to tell from this letter whether she’s exceptionally thin-skinned (it was really over nothing more than a fork in the sink? Not a blatant refusal to ever do dishes or empty the dishwasher, or a bug problem, or in connection with dirty laundry piling up?), or if the friend is really purposely disrespecting her (leaving stuff laying around without ever cleaning up after himself, treating the fiancée like a mother or maid).

You gave him to March initially, and prior posters are correct than in some states (mine is one of them) the friend is a lawful tenant and would need to be formally evicted. Your verbal agreement to let him live there through March could be as binding as a written lease. Set a written date-certain and stick to it.

LW, regardless of whether you think your fiancée was overreacting, you don’t have the right to tell her to “get over it”. This is (from how I read your letter) also her house. It doesn’t matter whether she’s paying rent or not–that’s entirely separate from your arrangement with your friend. The three of you need to set some very specific rules, and the one rule that is never, never, never optional: everyone should feel safe, respected and welcome in his or her own house.

Incidentally, if you’re willing to take your buddy’s side over your fiancée’s, how much does this woman really matter to you? I watched my husband tell a friend from childhood to get out of our house because the friend said rape isn’t really a crime, since women have sex voluntarily all the time anyway. (I didn’t ask him to give friend the boot, but as a survivor of an assault, I was very upset and left the room.) I watched him tell his own mother (with whom I’m now very friendly) to back down or get cut out of the wedding planning entirely after she made snide comments about our income and my parents’ monetary gift to us. And you’re telling her to “let it go”? Counseling. Pronto.

Getting upset about rape or intense, unwarranted personal criticism is reasonable. However, the LW made no mention of the roommate’s trespasses being so serious. If he and the fiance got into a fight over who drank the last bit of milk, I think it’s perfectly fine to tell the fiance to “let it go”.

That’s why I said I wish I knew more about the “little thing” that sparked this. To a lot of people, my MIL’s comment would have been mostly innocuous. To me, it was obnoxious. Fiancée was fine with friend for quite a while, something happened. Obviously it wasn’t “no big deal” if it led to this. I’m not saying fiancée is “right”. Frankly, that’s irrelevant to the present situation.

It sounds like you’re being controlled by both of them. What do you want? Without knowing more about either your friend or your fiance, I can’t say if one is more in the right than the other, but you have made a committment to be one of them for the rest of your life. Is this worth throwing away your future with her? On the other hand, if your fiance is pitting you against your friend, is she the woman you thought she was and is she worth being with?

I certainly don’t know the answer to either of these questions, but it needs to be YOU who stands up and makes the decision here. Don’t let yourself contiune to be pushed around by these two.

Why are so many people here talking about who is in the right over that fight, why does it even matter?

The fact is that the roomie and the fiancee don’t like each other, the why doesn’t matter and its only going to get worse. The dislike has got so bad that the fiancee will move out if the roomie doesn’t.

Now the question, who does the LW want to keep? the roomie of the fiancee….

so the question in my mind this whole time while reading the letter was, OK, well what does the LW want???

LW- what do you want? do you want to continue to help your friend despite the various issues that have arose? do you want your fiance and friend to live together peacefully? do you care if your fiance moves out? what exactly do you see coming out of this situation?

I get that she is your fiance- that you should support her and your relationship with her. but just as everyone is saying that you should be the one to kick the friend out for the sake of the relationship, couldnt the same case be made for the fiance to keep being ok with your friend staying at your house? right, because if you should be willing to sacrifice something (friendship with the roommate/knowing that you are kicking your good friend out on the streets) for the betterment of your fiance/relationship, she should be able to sacrifice something (letting someone down on their luck who their fiance loves stay at their house) as well- that street goes both ways in my opinion.

i think you need to have a coming to jesus meeting (where is sarah, btw?). you need to sit them down and lay down what is going to happen. you have to still listen and compromise, but you have to tell your fiance that if she is willing to marry you, she better start respecting your friend and your right to help him out when he is down on his luck. then, you need to sit your friend down and tell him that if he wants you to be happy, that is going to happen with the woman you want to marry and you two need to start a life together- without him in the house.

personally, i would never kick my friend out. my friends are my family. this situation would be no different then if it was a mother or sister down on their luck. and you better be damn sure that the man i will marry is not going to balk at letting someone I love stay at our house while they are getting back on their feet. also, i would expect that my friend wouldnt stay past what was needed. be that a year, fine. they needed a year. but as soon as they are able to leave, they would. thats my standard for the people in my life. on the flip side of it, if my fiance’s friend had to stay with us, i would never pull what this girl has done. i think it is disrespectful and down right wrong. to want privacy or whatever is fine, but to put the LW in the “its me or him” situation is just so wrong. it is no different then the men who have women friends who the girlfriend hates. “its her or me”. no, its not. i think that when you marry someone, you marry their family and friends too- and that would include letting someone stay at my house.

Fine…that works for you. Don’t act like everyone should do exactly what you do. Everyone seems to want to label the fiancee a controlling shrew or the friend a mooch. We don’t know enough to do that.

The bottom line? Building a relationship, a marriage, and a life together requires some privacy AND some compromise. The fiancee willingly threw out that privacy for the LWs friend for OVER A YEAR. She gave up the beginnings of cohabitation with her fiance for this guy. That is a big deal to some people- they won’t get that time back. This is the foundation that their family will be built on. That is a long ass time, and she is well within her rights to decide that this arrangement is not working for her any longer. Yes, she was behaving pettily by demanding an apology- but if you can claim to be rational, mature and logical 100% of the time, then please…start writing your book and developing your website now, because I’d love to know your secret. Now, she has decided the most appropriate course of action for her is to move out because her current living arrangement is untenable. That’s her right. I agree that she shouldn’t have issued an ultimatum, but see my previous point.

As for the friend? He’s worked and paid his rent on time? How has he not managed to save up enough money to live in an apartment with a roommate?? If I can afford to live on my own (with a roommate), he can do it. Before you start with the real estate argument- the city I live in has rent prices comprable to any major metropolitan area. And before you start with “medical expenses! debt! blah blah blah!- don’t you think the LW would have mentioned that in his letter? Yes, it sucks that his transmission blew- but honestly, anyone with 2 brain cells knows that you don’t move in with a couple!! Especially a just-starting-out couple!! He surely must have another friend in the area. He offered to move out in December, and then reneged on that agreement- rather than chirp the fiancee, he needs to come up with a backup plan.

This isn’t some “bros vs. hos” bullshit. This is about the LW needing to grow the eff up and make a decision about what’s going on in his house.

i kind of dont know if you meant to reply to my post- none of what you said seemed to stem from what i said…

but anyway, this- “This is about the LW needing to grow the eff up and make a decision about what’s going on in his house”- i totally agree. this guy needs to stop letting other people influence him and decide what is important to him!

The problem with your point, though, is that it ceased being HIS house the minute they got engaged and she moved in – it then became THEIR house, and it will remain that way unless, or until, their relationship ceases and she is no longer in the picture. And as it is now THEIR house, she deserves to not only have her voice heard, but considered. If she is uncomfortable with this man living their home after this amount of time, and has expressed that to her fiance, then he has an obligation to work out what to do with HER, not the friend. The friend is crashing there, but it is the fiancee’s home. Her reaction, while over the top, has more to do with feeling like her voice isn’t heard than with trying to stir the pot and create a “him or me” situation. You’re right that there needs to be a conversation had amongst the LW and both the fiancee and the friend, but to ignore the fact that the fiancee deserves a say is apalling to me, and tells me that you must be very young.

Case in point, I have been living with my best friend since the day we met as brand new college roommates. That was 10 years ago and we’re still roommates. I got married 2 months ago and, for the past 4 years, have shared a home with her and my husband. I love her to pieces, but half the time it is incredibly draining to have her there and it DOES take a toll on my relationship with my spouse. Even if the LW’s friend is the nicest guy on earth, his constant presence WILL make a difference in the relationship that the LW has with his fiancee. People in close spaces will always get on each others nerves for little things. If left unsaid, you get what happened here – a blow out over something insignificant but which is really just a manifestation of their pent up frustation. The difference in my scenario is that we are all equal in terms of the home we share. We rent together and split it up as such. However, in a week or so, my husband and I are closing on our first home and our roommate will be coming with us. It is OUR house, not hers, and as such, the two of us will be making decisions about how things are run, not her. We are smart enough, though, to draft up something in writing so that there is no confusion as to the length of time her stay is permitted, and the financial obligations she will have. The LW should have done that to begin with, and now, he definitely needs to. If my husband had been a homeowner and I moved in, you better believe I would have had a say in things. If I had been a homeowner and he moved in with me, I would have done the same for him. I love my friend, and I love his, but my obligation is first and foremost to him as he is my PARTNER and we are a TEAM. Anything less than an equal partnership when it comes to matters like this is unacceptable, and anyone who thinks otherwise is either in a very poor relationship, or not old enough to fully grasp that.

And quite frankly, this situation is NOT the same as girlfriends who ban their boyfriends from hanging out with their women friends. This is a very specific situation in which a person they very generously offered to help out has overstayed their welcome, created tension in their relationship, refuses to apologize, and is grasping at straws in an effort to not have to face the reality of his financial struggles. At this point, the LW needs to sit down with his fiancee, apologize for not allowing her to feel that her opinion is validated, and make a decision TOGETHER as to how to proceed. They need to abide by the March 2012 timeframe, as that is what was originally discussed and approved by all parties on a verbal basis. The LW and the fiancee need to have a united front on this matter. Put in writing a specific time and date in which the friends needs to move out (and if he wants to move out sooner, that he has the ability to do so but has an abolsute end point), what his financial (or other) obligations will be in that timeframe, and then have all of them sign it, get it notorized, and retain a copy for each party in case any legal issues arise in the future. They need to make it crystal clear to the friend that this is the fiancee’s home, too, and that he needs to respect her as he respects the LW. The fiancee and the friend need to BOTH apologize to each other and find some common ground to make their living situation more livable for the remainder of his time there. They are all adults and need to act like it.

“but to ignore the fact that the fiancee deserves a say is apalling to me, and tells me that you must be very young.”

i definitely dont think that the fiancee shouldnt have a say- i just think as much as he should be respecting her by trying to get his friend out of the house, she should also respect him by understanding that this is a person who he loves and who (in my personal opinion) he could never just turn out on the streets. the respect should be flowing both ways, and thats what i dont see happening.

the girlfriends who ban boyfriends from seeing each other i think is relevant… when you choose to be with someone, you dont just choose that one person- you honestly dont. you choose their friends, family, dogs, creepy doll collections, weird hobbies- whatever. and in that token, i honestly dont think (again, just my opinion) that this fiancee can pull a “he moves or I move”. she cant make him choose which parts of his life that he will be a part of. she signed up to share that life together- as a team- and that will always include the other people that are in his life, and problems that arise from that.

its a delicate situation… i dont think either of them are right. i think the roommate is being a bad friend, and i think that she is being a bad fiancee. i think he seriously needs to sit them down and lay down the law.

I get what you’re saying, but I still don’t think you really understand the position the LW has put his fiancee in. All three of them have done something wrong. The “him or me” attitude, which you really don’t seem to be understanding, is an extreme reaction to the immense stress she is under, NOT because she has some issue with the friends he has in his life. If that were true, she would never have been okay with opening up their home to him in the first place. I do think she owes the LW, and the roommate, an apology for blowing things out of proportion and not discussing this on a rational, adult level; but really, if you were her, and you had this guy staying in your home for a year, with no end in sight, and then, just when you think he’s going to leave, your fiance tells you that he unilaterally made a decision to let him stay, you would be okay with that? I don’t think so. And trust me, I really do get that your romantic relationships come with a whole host of other relationships attached to it – I’m married, I have in-laws and friends of my husband in my life now, and, in turn, he has to deal with MY family and friends (one of which does live with us, which, I think, gives me a good perspective as to how that can erode a relationship, because it can). But that is irrelevant IN THIS PARTICULAR CASE because what is really at the heart of this issue is a lack of respect. The LW did not respect his fiancee enough to include her in major decisions that affect her, and which she was already under the impression had been worked out. HE’S the one being the “bad fiance”, not her. She may have overreacted, but people hanlde stress in different ways, and that’s really all her reaction was related to – stress. I’m not saying her reaction is acceptable, just that it’s clearly not a situation of a chronic controlling personality. The fiancee has respected the LW’s need to put a roof over his friend’s head. Is it too much to ask that the arrangement end so she can be allowed to feel like their house is HER home, as well? But really, the worst offender is the friend. He has had an incredible lack of respect for both the LW and fiancee. He’s pitted them against each other by trying to manipulate the LW into getting what he wants at the expense of the LW’s relationship with his fiancee. He’s disrespected the fiancee’s place in the LW’s life and in the pecking order of the house. Guests do NOT get a say in how long they get to stay or how things are run. He’s basically become an emotional mooch, and that’s an awful thing to do to someone who has been so generous to you in your time of need. The roommate, at this point, is taking advantage of their generosity and really needs to go.

And for the record, I have no issue with taking in friends or family when the need arises. But it HAS to be a decision that the couple makes TOGETHER, which the LW is clearly not doing. And really, I’m not in a much different situation than the LW is currently, myself. My best friend lives with us. She’s moving with us into our new house soon. My husband and I discussed TOGETHER what the longevity of our generosity would be and what we would expect out of her in terms of financial obligations, how she can decorate, what she should help out with, etc. Then, as a united front, we discussed it with her so that there is absolutely no confusion as to where we stand on it. And you know what? It’s not an issue. She knows what to expect, we know what to expect, and if any alterations are made to the agreement down the line, we’ve already discussed how that will be handled. But to be honest, as much as it does put a strain on my relationship with my husband to live with her (because to say it doesn’t would be a lie), she’s been such a huge part of my life for so long (and for much longer than he has) that I would LOVE to let her live with us far longer because I know I will miss her, but that’s not a decision that I get to make by myself. Even if I owned the home myself and was engaged still, I would NEVER make a decision like that without consulting my man first. You better believe a blowout like this exact sitaution would occur – because it’s a respect issue. His relationship with his fiancee takes priority because she is his PARTNER. They are sharing a life. Part of that life includes friends like their roommate, but while they are important, his loyalty NEEDS to be with his fiancee. Why would you marry someone if you can’t feel comforted to know that they are in your corner? If she had done something blatantly wrong like kicking out the roommate (which, she legally has no right to do), then yeah, I’d be calling her a bad fiancee, too. But she’s not. She just wants the man she loves to give her the courtesy and respect that EVERYONE should expect from their significant other.

I think they are both playing with your feelings and taking advantage if your good nature, I think you need to reevaluate both relationships and do what is best for you not what everyone else is telling you to do!

So, from what I understand, the LW automatically took the friend’s side when it differed from the fiancee’s side? You’re going to have an unhappy marriage if this becomes a trend.

Anyway, this sort of boils down to who you’d rather keep, the friend or your fiancee. If this is a hard decision for you, then you probably need to rethink your relationship with your fiancee. Not that I think that people should ditch their friend’s for their significant others, but marriage is kind of a big deal and requires both parties to stand by each other through a lot of shit.

Some people are assuming the fiancee is super controlling, but we don’t know what the day-to-day dynamics are at the house. And if she’s asking more than what the LW wants to give, it doesn’t automatically make her wrong (or him wrong), it just means that there are some issues that need to be worked out before they commit the rest of their lives to each other.

Not that I’m in the pro-roommate camp (or even the pro-fiance camp), but I didn’t get the sense that the LW necessarily believed the roommate over the fiance in regards to their arguement. I got the impression the LW thought the better way to keep the peace in the house was to just ask her drop it and move on.

Maybe I read it wrong and he explicitly did take sides, but I don’t think the letter gives enough information to know definitively one way or the other.

Ultimately, I agree the LW needs to put on his big boy pants, evaluate both relationships, and make a decision without letting himself get jerked around by the other two.

You guys, I’m out of commission – more or less – for, like, the whole week. Gasp! Try not to have too many interesting letters, comments, disputes, fights, or name-calling while I’m gone! And whatever you do, don’t bond without me; I will feel left out.

I would say that the fiancee has been more than patient. If this guy doesn’t stand by his fiancee, the marriage does not have a chance as she has been more than patient with this loser friend. Just because you stand by your potential marriage partner does not mean you are pussy-whipped. Grow up and tell the doofus friend that he is causing stress in your relationship and it is time to go. Otherwise I do not blame her for walking.

What I don’t get is why when a woman takes a stand and expresses her opinion on something she is labeled a controlling bitch. She was OK with the guy staying until he gets back on his feet. How long should that take?? A year, two or three?? When does it become OK for her to say something? When he does something that everyone here agrees is unreasonable?? She is the one living there, she has every right to set her own limits, because the LW clearly can’t. And why does not agreeing with her future husband all of a sudden makes her the so-obviously-wrong-for-him?? And the deadline, well the roommate was the one to come up with the December one. Why is he trying so hard to stay in a home he is no longer welcome in?? How about instead of taking rent for this month, the LW lets him fix his transmission, which would let him keep the December moving out date.

Why, after agreeing to live with her future husband, does she have to put up INDEFINITELY with some friend who, as I see it, is not making an effort to keep the peace in the house. It doesn’t matter what the argument was about. It doesn’t matter if she was completely wrong. The guy should have been out of there way before. And I find it very sad that so many people would just go back on their commitment to the person they love just because a friend, who is clearly pushing the boundaries, suggests that HE should be the priority in your life. You can try and help the people all you want. I am sure everyone has at least one of those shit-magnet friends. Everything happens to them. I know I do. And I am tired of helping her for the last 14 years. Doesn’t mean that I love her any less, it is just always something. The boss is giving her hard time at work, so she quits. She doesn’t want to work in certain fields because it is “beneath” her. She chooses to rent an apartment in a building that has a pool and a gym, even though she has never set a foot into either one. At one point, i just said that I do love her and I do value her friendship, but I can’t keep trying to help someone who has no intention of even pretending to listen to me. If she were to stay in my home, I would want to shoot myself.

P. S. Just for the hell of it, when I read the letter, I didn’t assume that the guy is paying rent. “He found another job making significantly less funds, but enough to still pay rent, etc.” – I think that means that he is making enough to pay rent elsewhere, but chooses to stay with them to save more money, which I think adds to the finacée’s dislike.

I read that as he pays rent to the LW. I don’t think the fiancee is being reasonable here because she isn’t saying, “oh, I’m really disappointed he won’t be leaving sooner, I was looking forward to having the place to ourselves”. She’s saying, “Either he’s out by the end of December or I’M OUT!” To me that’s immature and not reasonable. I know I’m not inclined to think women are less rational, but here I think she’s wrong.

The only thing is that I don’t think delicate phrasing would really be effective with this LW. If the fiancè were to say something like you suggested, I feel like he’d just respond with “Me too, baby! Oh well” instead of taking initiative to change the situation. It’s been quite a long time, so although “HE’S OUT OR I’M OUT” seems extreme, it sounds like the fiancè just doesn’t know what else to do to make the LW realize how unhappy she is. Also, I think it’s reasonable for her to be nervous that the guy’s NEVER going to leave if his timeline keeps changing and her fiancè just keeps being cool with it. There has to be a line.

I don’t think a woman who takes a stand and expresses her opinion is a controlling bitch. I do however think that both the letter writer and his fiancé have control and communication issues.

Personally, I would never be okay with letting someone move in with my husband and me unless it was under very extreme circumstance (think parent with dementia and no assisted living options.) I’m an introvert so I wouldn’t feel comfortable and it would put a strain on my marriage, which is my first priority. If friend or family needed a place to stay due to temporary circumstances you had better believe there would be a long discussion with my husband about expectations, house rules, and an end date. We would come to a consensus and then talk with our guest together about our mutual expectations as a united front (we’ve been in this situation before).

I don’t hear any of that in the letter. I hear that the letter writer and fiancé felt sorry for friend and let him move in (not stay for awhile until he finds a new place, but move in). This wouldn’t work for me but I know other married people who rent a room for money so it happens. It is from this perspective that I see the friend as more of a tenant than a charity case. I think the lw included the fact that the friend lost his good job to lead up to why the transmission going out might delay his leaving.

When the friend and fiancé got aggravated with each other, I don’t think the fiancé should have sent in the lw to force an apology. I think it is natural to expect respect from a tenet/friend who is living in your home. I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect your fiancé to have your back. But the letter writer is entitled to form his own opinion if he really thought his fiancé was over-reacting or wrong then they both should have kept discussing it until they came up with a solution that allowed the fiancé to feel respected by the tenant without making the letter writer feel like his opinion didn’t matter and he had to follow orders. This was both of their responsibility and neither of them owned it.

I think the fiancé had a right to change her mind about renting to the friend. But rather than admit that she didn’t want him around because of the tension surrounding the disagreement she started acting irritated about small things which she didn’t have a problem with before. This does not strike me as a woman who is taking a stand and expressing her opinion. Likewise, it took a whole month to get the letter writer to realize there was a problem with his future wife and initiate a discussion about getting his friend to move out. Letter writer doesn’t seem terribly responsive to fiancé so perhaps that is why she act more directly (control issues). If the tenant was encroaching upon fiancé’s personal space before the incident then apparently the letter writer didn’t know about it. Communication Problems.

The letter writer and fiancé finally did communicate and came to a resolution that friend needed to leave. They did give him an awful lot of time but considering a residential lease is commonly around a year and the fiancé agreed it seemed to be an okay solution.

I do think that when the friend told them he would be out for sure by the end of December and then went back on it that it would have been better if the letter writer had talked with his fiancé first before telling him it would probably be okay. But I don’t like the language of “either he moves out by the end of the month or she would”. I can understand why she would feel upset and would want to regain some control of her life situation. I can understand if she needed to move out and rethink things with the letter writer. But the language seems to suggest a very do what I say or its over mentality.

The friend definitely needs to go as soon as possible because clearly she (like me) can’t co-hebetate with someone else in the picture and that’s fine. But I honestly think both of them need to work on their issues as a couple. If they don’t then problems are going to resurface in other areas after this guy is gone.

I know I just wrote a novel that nobody will read as this post seems dead but I really don’t like the implication that I’m sexist because I don’t think the fiancé handled what may have been legitimate complaints well.

I agree with most of what was stated above, but I’m not sure the moving out was completely a result of the past year. Sure, it contributed a whole hell of a lot, but I think the biggest issue here is that when your friend asked to stay longer, you agreed without talking to your fiance. Either you genuinely didn’t think to consult with her, or you knew she’d say no and intentionally didn’t ask her. I think that’s what has pushed her to the ultimatum. You know how she feels, but went against that. Did you decide with friend that “a little longer” was the original March deadline, or is it open ended? Look, she might be controlling, your friend might be freeloading off you, and you might be a people pleaser, but the fact is, on a heated subject you made a decision without working it out with your fiance first. Do you have to run everything past your fiance from this day forward? Of course not, but when it’s something this big (and has been explicitly stated as a big deal) and impacts both of you, you need to include her. I think she’s probably not sure who’s side you’re on, but this probably sealed the deal for her that you aren’t backing her up and putting her first. Look, I know this is a tough decision, but this is one where you need to decide, is this woman as important to me as I thought? Or is your friend more important? Only you can answer that, and there isn’t anything wrong either choice. But know that either way you go, someone will probably be hurt, you just need to decide who you want to hurt the least.

I think his fiancee is out of line. Together they agreed to have the roommate move in without a set end date. Together they decided they were ready for him to move out March 2012, roommate agreed and even offered to try to get out earlier. Now he can’t move out earlier, so he was letting them know he had to stick with the original plan.

I interpreted his support of his friend to mean that he felt his fiancee was out of line in her position. I think that he’s in a tight spot, but they as a couple agreed to March 2012 and I think that’s the date they should have to stick to. The roommate wanted out sooner, I’m sure because it’s uncomfortable to live somewhere you know you aren’t wanted. I doubt he wants to stay any longer than he has to. By throwing this ultimatum down, she’s trying to change the agreement and she’s being childish. At this point, another three months isn’t going to change the long term picture of their life together.

I might be biased here because I’ve spent a lot of time living with roommates, while in relationships and while single. I don’t think a romantic relationship trumps a friendship if the two are at odds. If the roommate is paying rent, he has the right to stay in the house to the agreed upon date, he is an equal, legally (at least in MN, heck in MN he has legal rights even if he isn’t paying rent!). According to the LW, the roommate keeps to himself and her gripes are a few dirty spoons in the sink and the unknown disagreement that the LW thinks she was in the wrong about. This makes me think she’s overreacting and she IS being controlling.

Roommate could have phrased his concern better, but in my experience, men are usually pretty straight with each other, so I can see how the LW would feel like he should take that into account.

And I too have lived with roommates since I was a wee babe (family) and then in college…and now post-college…yep…roommates. So maybe that is why I’m so biased against it being such a huge deal to hold off a few more monhts.

Neither your fiancee or your friend is 100% in the right. She’s been using you as a third-party to deal with her conflict with the friend (and maybe she just feels uncomfortable about it because its *your* friend, but let’s set that aside for a moment.) He’s been overstaying his welcome at the very least (it’s not clear from your letter whether he pays into the home at all but again, let’s set that aside for now.) I think you and your fiancee need to come to an agreement about how much longer he can stay and then stick to it. Maybe in a calm discussion you can come to some common ground. It sounds like she may have been reacting out of frustration. Offer a compromise (maybe Feb 1? somewhere in the middle) and say “I think that’s fair given that we hoped he’d be gone sooner but we did tell him March originally.” See how that goes.

Ultimately, your fiancee is a 50% partner in your household (and I don’t care if she pays rent – she’s been living there at least a year, she’s your future wife, even if her name isn’t on the mortgage that is her HOME). Of course, since the house is legally yours you are technically free to host your roommate as long as you wish. But you have to be prepared that your fiancee may take her 50% and peace out if you keep the roommate much longer. It’s her choice to make as to whether she can deal with this any more and what that means for your relationship or living arrangements.

Personally, even taking the fiancee out of the equation, I think a year is more than generous of you to host a buddy who is paying, if not no rent, then at least discounted rent. I’m assuming that because you say he wants to stay longer to “save money” which means he would presumably have to pay more in rent somewhere else. He should be seriously grateful and definitely not accusing you of being some sort of sock puppet bending to your fiancee’s will. If I’d been staying with a friend that long and they were like “look you gotta go” I would leave, no questions asked, with a big THANK YOU for the hospitality. So at the very least your friend is being a dickwad in that regard.

Just commenting on the rent saving money thing. Paying your share on a house actually is a lot cheaper in my experience than renting a single bedroom apartment. A lot of apartments in my area cost more to rent a month than a mortgage payment on a 1200 sq ft house.

This is true. However, you can find a houseshare pretty easily. Craigslist has a whole section devoted to it. Its possible for him to find a similar housing situation elsewhere. Yeah, its more fun to live with a close friend than strangers you meet online, but he should be able to find something affordable (unless he is of course getting a deeply discounted rate already).

Again, I don’t think we have enough information to determine which party is being the unreasonable one, but if he’s truly paying a fair share of rent, he CAN find something comparable elsewhere.

“If I’d been staying with a friend that long and they were like “look you gotta go” I would leave, no questions asked, with a big THANK YOU for the hospitality.”

Yes. While I can’t ultimately take sides for either the roommate or fiance, I do think that if a friend takes you into their home and gives you free/discounted rent, when the time comes for them to ask you to leave, you do so quickly and with a big thank you. Regardless of the presence of the fiance, this friend got a huge favor, for a YEAR, and the gracious thing to do would be to leave when asked without making a fuss. Its not like they rented this house together and he’s getting kicked off a lease, he was given a temporary place to live. He should’ve known that wouldn’t last forever whether or not there was a fiance who wanted him out.

Exactly!! I cannot agree more…An adult man who still have self respect, honor and common sense will leave when the host ask them to leave… no need to add drama tho the host life.. just be grateful for the kindness of the host and the fiance.

besides, why no other people want to help him? other friends, parents, sister, brothers, extended family? maybe all of them already have enough of him and he already not welcomed in their house. I have some distant cousin that we never opened door when they show up (pretending for visiting but always asking money and gobble our food).

Broken transmission? pleaseee… I rather walk or take a bus or sell the car than to be an ass at someone else house… especially when the owner clearly said that I not welcome anymore.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that as you went to the trouble to build a house you plan on living there into the foreseeable future. As your fiancee has moved into this house with you under the assumption that the two of you will be married sometime within the next few years (if you’re actually and actively planning out this wedding), this makes your house a home for both of you. Have you cleared space for her stuff? Redecorated together? Jointly bought furniture/household items? Despite the fact that you had your house built on your own, with your own funds before your met your fiancee, this is now your house together as a family. And thus she gets the “call” some “shots” when it comes to decisions about this house – especially when it comes to who lives there.

You are a wonderful for supporting your friend during such a hard time in this kind of economy. But you really, really, really should have decided on a definite END to your friend’s stay BEFORE he moved in. Extensions are fine, but only within reason. Guests don’t stay with their hosts for over a year. Set backs like lay offs and broken cars can be hard, but your friend has had time to work out another situation, if only temporary, during all this time. It sounds like he’s been paying rent (according to the “still” in your “He found another job making significantly less funds, but enough to still pay rent”) and if that isn’t a just nominal “$1” then it’s probably enough to cover rent somewhere else. If he can room with you and your fiancee, he can room with other friends, or rent a room in a house off craigslist, etc.

As for your fiancee, maybe she is being controlling – because she has control when it comes to HER house. Asking you to get in the middle of her fight with your friend was immature, but she needs you to mediate. Your friend is someone you obviously care about – how could she bypass you and tell him to get out even if it’s her house too? She’s making her preferences and concerns clear to you and you need to make yours clear to your guest/friend.

This living situation is obviously not working on any level and it needs to end one way or another – your friend moves out or your fiancee moves out. Maybe not at end of December, but on a mutually decided “exit” date (preferable printed on a piece of paper, signed, and witnessed). Do you really want to have your friend live with you indefinitely into 2012 instead of having an intimate home with your fiancee? If hanging out with your friend is more fun than living with your partner then let her move out and reassess your engagement. You need to make a decision here LW. Who do you want? Him? Her? Neither? This choice doesn’t end your relationships with these people, it allows them to continue. At the rate things are going explosions are going to happen and one of these relationships may not survive. You can’t make everyone happy – doing so has only made everyone, yourself included, miserable.

It’ll be tough, but go with your gut, stick to your decision, and be firm.